If Caisley is to have ANY credibility in my eyes, he must state clearly that he will NOT put Club into Administation as he is determined to keep our young talent. I might then reconsider my view of him. Go on Mr C, I challenge you to be up front and say it.

Maybe Caisley should have done what he has to do with his lawyer's hat on in his own practice where there is potential for representing both sides: pass the player managership to someone else.

Although, more to the point, why did he take it on in the first place, when it was impossible for him to do right by both player and club?

I find it distasteful to advocate Caisley.
I do not know whether it is Caisley himself or his Law Firm that represents players. He has quite a few players I believe.
As merely a shareholder in the Bradford Bulls he must put any moral allegiance to them to one side when properly representing a client.
I have no qualms about him taking on quality clients, that's good business, and we do not know what compensation he negotiated for the Bulls for Sam's transfer.

However, I totally agree with ADEY that Caisley could have put any dealings with Bulls players at arms length, and that he did not was deliberately provocative.

Caisley is personally accredited as a RFL-recognised agent and lawyer. Not Walker Morris.

I expect that whatever is going to happen will happen in the next few days.
Caisley will have all his plans in place, he would not have made his move to demand an EGM otherwise.
It might be a prepack administation if he has the RFL on board or it might be an increase of the club's share capital, the increase to be taken up by an investor/s to ensure overall share control.

My guestimate of the amount paid in compensation/costs is around the £250 -360K mark. I think that some at least of this was reserved in the 2005 accounts which were the last of Caisleys chairmanship but were signed of by Hood in Feb 2007. For my guestimate I have used the published accounts accruals and deferred income within creditors due over one year and statements about the timing and amounts of both the Odsal deferred income (2003 - 9) and the payment of the compensation (2009 10 11). I could have done with a bit more detail about movements on this account, specifically the accruals element of the balances as that would have enabled me to narrow it down, the 2011 accounts may help when they come out.

The total damage is much bigger and despite Caisleys PR is still with us today.

Funny.

To round figures up, over the last 3 years we have paid three installments of £500,000 compensation to Leeds, totalling £1.5m.

The overall cost of the saga, including BB's liable for LR's costs can be totaled around about the £2.5m mark. The figures arent far off. I speak from experience rather than idle gossip. Have a look at Leeds' accounts, they have made around about £500,000 profit each year we have paid them. They're also running the "break-even" model that Ryan and the BB's speak about. It just so happens they've had a slight helping hand from the benefactor in BD6.

Where is your evidence for this in our accounts not Leeds?

Hood refers to the settlement in the 2008 accounts, and so all liabilities relating to it should be in there. liabilities are divided into those due within a year and those due over. so two thirds of any payout (the 2010 and 2011 payments) should be in the due over a year balances. those balances are £241601, not 1000000. Nor are there any massive changes in the due within a year balances, and much of that will be deferred income anyway, being season ticket money taken in 2008 but for the next season.

Wouldn't it really depend on the reasons for the Administration? If its purely to obtain complete control of the club then clearly credibility would be the least of his problems. But if we're bust, if the pledge was ill conceived, if there never was much prospect of extra investment?

I dont think anyone could credibly state with any confidense that they will keep our young talent.

I wonder what the RFL attitude would be to that if CC were on the board(chairman?) in future? There is a definite and very obvious conflict of interest if he represents Bulls' players in contract talks with, erm, himself...

I dont have any evidence. I spoke directly with the people (notably the player) involved in the "saga" at the time it was going on.

Why does Admin mean selling all our young players. Rangers have been in Admin for ages now and none of the playing squad have been sold.

Probably because anyone worth having from Rangers has gone (Just Jelovic). Will be a different story you have some players worth having. If it's HMRC that are instructing the administrators no doubt they will be ruthless with selling of assets. And i doubt much the the RFL will fastrack in new owners as they will only start vetting potential candidates once there is an agreement between new owner and administrators. This could drag on for a few weeks but guaranteed there will be a few wolves at door (not just Warrington).

Leeds were going to take both Harris and us to court. We settled, but Leeds said they were still going to go after Harris. He in turn blamed his solicitors for advising him and said he was going to sue them. We had already shown that Leeds were prepared to settle, and thats probably what happened on the quiet with the solicitors PI insurance paying Leeds.

I still have trouble with the sums though. Leeds had the option to sign him for twelve months, no more, and they had to pay the same rate as Cardiff, a basic of £200000 plus bonuses which you have to net off the income they lost through him not playing for them that year. so according to your source their losses were 1,500,000 minus £350,000 which is £1,150,000 compensation from Harris/his ex solicitors. that is a lot of money for one year by the time you have added back his salary of surely over £300,000 for that year, its back up to £1.5M. No wonder Leeds wanted to be sensible. It would not surprise me that the whole thing was £500,000 in total ie us 350,000 and Harris £150,000 from PI, not per year. If not then his ex solicitors are paying through the nose for PI insurance, oh dear.

but thanks for your posts, its helped my understanding of the whole issue even if it hasnt changed my guestimate.

The whole Harris saga could and should have been sorted out without going to court.

In any event what should have happened - and ought to be the case for any disputes between RFL member clubs - is mandatory independent arbitration, including binding results of said arbitration on both parties. Whoever replaces Lewis should make damn sure such a rule is in place to prevent anything like this happening again. I got blasted on the Leeds board a while ago for daring to suggest that even though it looked like Leeds might win the case, they should drop the whole thing. It is simply not worth the negative impact its had on the Bulls.

Even in standard commercial agreements the use of mandatory arbitration (at least before any consideration of going to court) is quite common. I find it bizarre that in a relatively small, underfinanced sport like RL, member clubs are apparently able to blast each other into non-existence by following ridiculously expensive court actions.