Lease then.....and not forgetting the dodgy loan that led to the lease being bought to recoup the money.



Typical Bills fan.....when faced with the blatant favouritism shown to their club by the RFL they try to deflect by pointing out faults in other clubs......

...given your clubs illustrious and long history, your attendances are embarrassing, the flea-pit you play out of is archaic and you're now owned by and sponsored by loan sharks.......

good luck for the rest of the season and we'll see you back in administration next January

Leaving aside that it would (the parachute payment), the [iway[/i the fine is imposed isn't the point.

The first, and seemingly last, new owner to be fined over a million quid was OKB. Why hasn't an equivalent financial penalty been levied against BBNL?

The more relevant way of asking the same question though is: why did the RFL single out OKB to fine over a million quid, at the last minute, agree to this or else?

"Nice try"?



I am starting to think you have issues. I am not "pretending I cannot read", and you can't have spelled out in your post the answers to questions that I had not yet asked.

If I "look like a prat" to you then so be it. I can live with that terrible knowledge. But your self-appointment as spokesman for everyone else on the forum seems to be part of your issue. It betrays a deep insecurity. But the truth is I simply made a sober and reasoned post, and your strange response was unwarranted.

Wouldn't you prefer having sensible discussion to flaming?

I won't claim to have read every word of the current 349 pages but I seem to recall it being established that the "fine" was negotiated by the RFL as some clubs who had paid their bills considered the Bulls to have an advantage by not doing so. As I saw the explanation, OK offered to forego some tv cash to appease the objecting clubs. If this is the case, the RFL kept the club in SL and the "fine" could be viewed as a sweetener.

My memory is not what it used to be so please enlighten me if events transpired otherwise.

Typical Gutterfax fan.....when faced with the blatant favouritism shown to their club by the RFL they try to deflect by pointing out faults in other clubs......

...Ooooh. Supposed Blatant favouritism shown to London dependant on opnions v Proven and documented Loans, lease purchase and bail outs provided to Bradford.....it's gonna be close

Perhaps the owner who managed to persuade 7 other clubs to vote for the proposal last time has found that the support isn't there this time after the financial and reputational carnage it caused to the Bulls, SL & the wider game.

Favouritism suggests, at least in your argument, that Bradford are alone in getting loans and their ground bought by the RFL. But this isn't the case.

The RFL have had a blind spot to London's shortcomings both off and in the field for many years.

it wasn't a fine for a change of ownership. Ok had to make an unconditional offer for the club, not knowing whether the club would be given a super league licence. A majority of the other SL owners/chairman had an axe to grind with the RFL over the hidden loan and subsequent purchase of the lease of Odsal. They banded together and put it to the RFL that if OK Bulls were to be accepted into SL and be given a licence they had to forego 1 years normal central funding...

But it wasn't the RFL who "fined" them. The RFL were just the conduit for it, the sanction was demanded by the members of SLE as a condition of membership of that organisation. Basically the other clubs said if you want in then this is the price of admission, a price which they then divided between themselves. If it had been an RFL imposed sanction you would have expected the money to go into their coffers and not to the other SL clubs. The other clubs imposed it, OK agreed to it (clearly unaware of the implications), the rest is history, and while there is much to blame the RFL for I don't think this issue is one of them..

I doubt he RFL will ever admit to its stupid folly. It would set a precedent, best just don't do it again and, like the war in German company, just don't mention it.

You are both right and wrong, but it doesn't matter, the end result is RFL run the game, if you think they are entirely the puppets of SLE and with no independent thought or action then so be it but I was discussing the fine, and not the small print.

In a way you are probably right, in that the lead may have come from other SL clubs though if it did then the RFL, being the governing body and all that, could have led rather than followed. So far as SL is concerned, what are you saying - that there is, in reality, no governing body, and while on paper they entirely run the sport, but in fact the RFL is a sham, a shadow, a non-existent smokescreen?

They aren't. Of course the SL clubs could vote with their feet if they fell out with RFL and split off or something but as we stand, the RFL does run the game, and does apply sanctions, and does have the power to apply the sanctions, and has the sole power to decided whether to apply any given sanction or not to apply it.

So whenever any discussion took place between SLE and RFL the RFL could have said "as the governing body, no, we do not countenance a one season distribution penalty". And should have.

The SLE clubs in contrast do not have the power to impose sanctions, financial or otherwise.


Yes and no. The sanction that was agreed was that the Bulls would receive half the distribution of other SL clubs for 2 years. There WAS no additional "money". The agreement was a self-contained whole and no surplus arose. The Bulls though ended up being short-changed under the deal - ie lost more than the agreement - and the illicit extra deduction arising fell into the other clubs' coffers. And of course the RFL was complicit in that. Under the sanction / condition of admission (call it what you like) there WAS no surplus to BE divided. I have explained the arithmetic many times.

I also do think that if there was to be a fine, then yes, it should have gone for the benefit of the game, and to me it is outrageous and unjustifiable that instead the other clubs took any money at all to benefit themselves, instead of paying the creditors who had been the victims, or failing that, at least for the benefit the game. Had Bradford not gone bust, then the clubs would not have had any bonus money. To me, a reasonable analogy would be a mafia: one of them stole a million last year. This year their son pays it back to the Godfather. He could distribute it to the victims, or give it to charity. But if instead he divides it amongst all the other family heads, then to me all they have done is in effect divided stolen money, and screw everyone else.