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.

Sounds about right.

But why does the new company, which had nothing to do with the old company, have to "pay off" whatever remains of the old company's distribution "debt"? Has anyone advanced a justification for that?

Well said!

I doubt anyone can come up a logical reason, because whichever direction you come from, it is just wrongheaded.

You also have to wonder just what effect this message has on any other 'white knight', maybe thinking of taking on troubled clubs in the future. As I've said previously, there are entities, more organised than the RFL, running around farm yards with their heads chopped off.

Section 2.1 of the RFL bye-laws contained within the Articles of Association :-

[i2.1 The ownership of Super League, or such other competition if any as may in the future replace it, [uincluding the arrangement, management, promotion and administration[/u of the Super League competition (and any event or competition involving Clubs in Super League and rugby league clubs from the southern hemisphere) and all intellectual property rights of any description whatsoever concerning the same [ushall vest absolutely in SLE[/u.[/i

So yes, SLE are a self-governing body operating within a framework provided by the RFL. They have, by consensus, delegated some authorities to the RFL, but they retain the rights to over rule anything the RFL does in relation to SL.

Hence why the RFL needed a majority of SL clubs to vote for the change in league structure....... without the clubs voting the RFL could not have gone to the 12 x 12 to 8 x 8 x 8

The Clubs (small minded cash starved owners/chairmen) wanted the Bulls and the RFL punished and that is what happened........dress it up how you like but in the minutes it was proposed by the clubs, voted on and accepted. The RFL has just relayed the proposal (ultimatum) to OK and he had no choice but accept it if he wanted the Bulls to continue in superleague

Maybe then, last time, the clubs ( 8:5 majority vote) hit Bulls with the £1.3m "membership fee/fine" and specified it was an SLE matter.

Perhaps this time, with the reputational hit that RL as a whole took on this fiasco, either the other clubs didn't back repeating the fine, or the RFL felt they could veto it as was not exclusively an SLE issue anymore.