The RFL are in an awkward position given that they were obviously lied to by Hudders officials. Are they going to just let that slide? If they do they'll be setting an awful precedent.

Maybe big Ralph will make sure his club,oops I mean Hudds,get away scot free

The other, and I should say, far more important thing which was decided later, was to re-structure the league under a bottom goes out principle, whilst they they knew full well we were going to be hamstrung by the underfunding they'd organised, and to which we'd agreed before we knew what the rules were going to be.

Restraint of trade, constructive dismissal?? It certainly can't be right, can it?

It certainly wasn't part of what the new owners signed up to. I'd be interested to know how they voted when the league proposals were discussed. Anyone go to the forum recently and ask that?

It would be nice to have some clarity, rather than the usual hysterical screams of incompetence & moral corruption against the RFL. What exactly are the facts behind the Bulls forfeiting half their Sky money? I have read a few times that it either agreed by or suggested by the new OK regime as a sweetener to the other clubs to allow them to remain in SL. The issue that they didn't agree to spend it on youth development is largely irrelevant as far as I am concerned as long as it stayed in the game. How many years of sacrifice was agreed? Was part of the deal that Bradford kept their squad together rather than predatory clubs picking off their players on the cheap (as a number of other clubs including Bradford have been guilty of in the past when teams have been relegated or in financial mire)?

It would have been ok to hand over the 2 years of Sky money if, as was the understanding were going to go through the licensing process for the next 3 years at the end of term. However, if you change the goal posts, you cant expect to apply the same financial fine for different rules for relegation promotion.

The RFL are certainly procrastinating with the Giants issue, it would not surprise me if they wait till the end of the regular season for a points deduction or fine.

As I understood it, some of the owners of clubs which run at a loss and have to be supported by said owner, thought that Bradford going into administration and effectively walking away from debts without financial penalty was giving Bradford an unfair advantage.

As they saw it, it would save them money if they funded their clubs less, built up debts, then bought the club cheaply from administration. Instead of the owner losing money, it would be the taxpayer (usually the biggest creditor) losing money.

This was the RFL & club chairmen compromise deal to make the 2nd scenario unpalatable to club chairmen.

As a franchise system is a closed membership (invitation only) they could withhold 1 full year Sky money ( but spread over 2 years).

Changing it to P/R does give the opportunity to challenge I would think.

I thought there were laws against the same directors going into admin and then starting the same operation all over again under a different name to escape the debts? Cannon and Ball spring to mind, weren’t they disqualified from being directors for that very reason? If that sort of practice isn’t illegal then I can understand other clubs wanting to guard against it. However in our case that didn’t even happen as the new company doesn’t have any connection with the last in terms of directors or shareholders?

I’m confused.

Rarely post these days but as a Bulls supporting actor once said "my dander is well and truly up!" Some or all of this may have be mentioned but there ya go. Just hoping it will make me feel a bit better but I bet it won't.

At the last fans forum GS stated that the club were going to seek legal advice re the sharing of the Sky money amongst the other clubs. I got the impression that he was saying that in the light of the reintro of promotion/relegation because, as has been stated many times recently, the goalposts have definitely been moved and it is not a level playing field. Whilst (thankfully) I'm not a lawyer, the original decision to deprive the club of said money and redistribute it was nothing short of extortion - basically, "pay up or you don't come in". From everything I have read and heard there was nothing official to it and it has set a terrible precedent, where certain Super League chairmen/club owners are calling the shots and the RFL are exposed as weak and frightened. The greatest sport in the world led by complete clowns! The other clubs have essentially started down the road of creating a cartel and the whole thing flies in the face of the spirit of competion law. In one way, I really do hope the club goes down the road of legal exploration, although that would obviously be expensive, depending on the level of resistance encountered. However, after the Hudds/Mason debacle I think most clubs might be wary of an impending courtroom wrestle when all they need to do is cough up a mere £50kish each to make a huge potential nightmare for themselves and the sport go away. You would think that by now even the most autocratic and obstinate of club chairmen must recognise that it was an act of folly to allow themselves to be led into a decision that was opportunistic and greedy and driven, by individuals who clearly have little or no regard to the consequences of their autocratic actions. Just how and why did the RFL sit back and allow this to happen??? Are they and the other clubs not guilty of bringing the game into disrepute?

The Kopczack cock-up is a different pit of vipers, and one which affects the reputation of the game I love in a big way. As a previous poster stated, if the RFL let this one slide they will be setting a huge and immensely damaging precedent. Furthermore, does not the whole sequence of events (from CK's 'loaded' walkout to Mason's contrived dimissal and subsequent court hearing) contain collectively, the ingredients of fraud and conspiracy? Something definitely there for the lawyers to chew over I think.

That's all except Leeds then?



I can see their point if that is the case.



I'm not sure what point you trying to make here. Are you saying all owners except Leeds thought they would follow the Bradford model?



Again I am not clear, the club chairmen made it unpalatable to themselves?

I think Highlander was saying that to avoid clubs taking the route of adminsitration to clear accumulated debts they decided to penalise any club going into administration a years Sky money on top of a points deduction.

I cannot imagine any of our upstanding clubs trying such a ploy, it is almost as silly as suggesting the Chancellor and BoE were colluding to push up inflation to reduce the deficit?

But surely this strategy of punishing a club for going into administration by punishing the person who gets it out of the mess is misguided? In our case the punishment is meted out to those who had nothing to do with going into admin in the first place.

It’s like if I got caught speeding, my car gets taken off me by the police and sold and the new owner of my car gets the fine!

If Caisley had taken over I could partly understand this as he was party to many of the decisions that led to the downfall of the old club and was the major shareholder. But this didn't happen.

It just makes me all the more suspicious that certain clubs (not all) would like to see us out of the picture completely and are engineering a situation that they can benefit from.

Agreed, and also the basic argument is based on a false premise; namely that Old Bulls had an unfair advantage, because what they should have been paying on debts/tax/VAT etc they supposedly were spending on the team. Well, given that we haven't qualified for the playoffs since about 1572 then it's not easy to see just what the advantage was!

So what is to stop teams repeatedly going into admin & just handing over to a white knight completely debt free? It is the club, not OK personally, who gets the fine. If he chooses one of his companies to pay the fine that's his business. No-one has yet answered my questions - did Ok offer or agree to the forfeit as a condition & did it enable Bradford to keep their squad?

The fact it was agreed to is well known TT, and I'm sure you know that already as it's been mentioned enough times on this board.

It still doesn't answer point about bringing in this new and quite heavy 'fine', C £1.2m and is a lot of dosh, whilst at the same time keeping stum that the way the league would deal with relegation was changing to one where not having sufficient funds was going to make it very difficult to sustain the status just re-gained, seems a tad unethicial; indeed it could be argued that Omar Khan was sold the club under false pretenses.