NEXT!

Compare you to us last year. Why would Parkin want to invest now? It will cost him a million quid and he will be stuck with the existing management structure. Do you think Glover at our place would have handed over half a million just so Ted Richardson could stay in charge? No, if he is going to invest, he will let you go into administration, get you for next to nothing, sweep away all the old debts, and put his own people in charge, like Glover did. And we are all the better for it.

My own suspicion is that Parkin is keeping an eye on Wakey in case our stadium gets the go ahead (we will know within two months), as then he can have his football team playing out of a brand new stadium.

Couldn't agree more, any serious investor/business person will just do a deal with the Administrator!

The quest is simply delaying the inevitable, Hood himself says SL clubs are basically not solvent and without long term investment we'll be here again in a year

If you analyse our recent trading history we've needed a player sale or loan every year for the last 5 or 6, so I don't know who Hood thinks he's been kidding and my continued criticism of this regime over the years looks justified!

Hood says investors aren't queuing up, no poo Sherlock, you've just advertised a fire sale and you're on the bonfire! The blokes a clown, really! Theyll be queuing up a plenty when KPMG are called in

Sounds like Caisley talking.

Has Parkin got the business nous to take on the Bulls with a new administration I doubt, he might be successful with smaller Clubs , but I feel he would struggle. Bradford has become/percieved to be a 3rd Worls sink hole hence investment in the area is not happening to a large extent. The present administration have done extremely well during the post Caisley years in paying off the inherited debt and fall out re SC, as Peter Hood has admitted, Ryan too, they have made mistakes and would do some things differently. With no rich benefactor to mop up the annual losses I think the Club have done more than well to keep going to this point, when circumstances caused this problem now being faced. Administration would be a death knell for this Club and no guarantee the franchise would stay at Odsal (the RFL having tenure on the lease wouldn't prevent a move away) The Club has said if they can get through this short term hiatus the future looks good, (and they won't be needing another hand out down the road like some believe)
Just keep pledging and encourage others to do so, time is not on anyones side for answers this side of Good Friday.

There does seem to be a general perception that Administration means we lose all our best players and our SL license, whereas avoiding Administration means we keep our best players and stay in SL.

I just do not think its that clear cut. My fear is that we scrape over the Pledge target but no new major investor comes in. We then limp along, effectively suffering most of the pain that would come with Administration but without taking the opportunity to clear the debts and start afresh. And once the fans money is gone its gone for ever, along with their goodwill.

That's my worry too

+1

Thing is if we go into administration all players contracts are effectively worthless and we get nothing for them. Best we could hope for is to reform in a lower division but I don't even that's very likely.
If we can avoid administration and still can't attract further investment then at least we have opportunity to sell a couple of players and get value for them. It's obvious which players would be most attractive to ther clubs and whilst it would be a bitter blow to lose one or two of our best players at least it would mean we stay in existence and keep core of team together.

As I keep saying, a prepack administration could well ensure the survival of the core of the team, and our SL franchise. A well-funded prepack, led by genuine RL fan/s which had the (non-financial) backing of the RFL could actually resolve a load of the current problems especially with the stareholdings stasis (as Maislebugs has consistently argued). Personally, I'd be gutted if the club defaulted on its tax liabilities, since its an issue I've always felt strongly about (not paying over monies that you deducted from employees and collected from customers, that were never yours in the first place) and I would face a serious moral dilemma - but that would be my problem. And of course we'd have to endure the contempt of many many fans of other clubs - collective broad shoulders would be a must. But a very very quick exit from administration could well work, IMO. As I keep saying. A very quick one,.

But my big big worry is over what would happen if there is no prepack in place (and if there IS one being planned, they are keeping it very very secret) and the administration period became protracted. The vultures, especially those who we already see seem to have one of those special elastic salary caps, would probably have a field day and I dread to think how far we would have fallen before salvation came, if at all. If this was most other RL towns in the country, I'd say we'd have a good chance of new investors ("investors" is an oxymoron of course where RL clubs are concerned!), but its not; its Bradford. The only city with a puddle in the middle and a hole in the heart.

So the dilemma facing the sceptics and waverers is, IMO, whether to hold out and hope and pray for a very quick exit from a subsequent administration (like, sort of, overnight) or to take steps now to try and stave off administration by backing the pledge campaign.

Spoilt for choice, aren't we?

Why is it guaranteed that players would leave during a period of administration?
Since their contracts become void they are essentially worthless, so selling them off to clear debts simply won't happen.
Is it just a case of the administrator attempting to reduce overheads of the business ie the wage bill?

Also, if we were to go into administration and form a new company or whatever, what would happen to the funds raised so far? Would we just pay off as much of the debt as possible and then fold?

Yes. Or of other clubs miraculously finding cap space and coming in for the best players.



Yup.

But, to avoid personal liabilities and heaven knows what else, the board must be confident that if the funds ARE raised then the club will NOT go into administration, so the funds WILL get used in the future business. Albeit to replace the loans to the RFL and the bank, which is basically what the club is seeking to achieve by all this.

Adey, I posted this previously - you might have missed it amongst the millions of others you have admirably being responding to - I was at a club in the mid-80s that went belly up (I guess it was admininstration) but none of the players left. We just carried on as if nothing happened. What is to stop the bUlls players doing this (apart from lucrative offers elsewhere)?

1 - the administrator making them redundant, lacking the cash flow to keep paying them.

2 - offers of better security elsewhere (as happened with Ben Jeffries and his return to Odsal because at the time he said Bulls could offer him better security...)

I think the big difference between then and now is that these guys are full-time and getting paid a load more than in your day, so the dynamics are very different to then?