Have the Tordoff's got any brass these days? Could they come in and set a new club up or wouldn't they be allowed?

Pains me to say it but all the pledges and fudraising will be tantamount to pouring good money down the drain whilst you are still controlled by the same board. My view would be to pool that money into your supporters trust and buy the club debt-free out of administration, otherwise you will be in the same predicament next year. It may seem hard to take but sometimes you have to take a step back to move several forward. Bradford will survive if you take that route and will in time come back stronger than ever, if you give money to the current lot you'll be gone for good by the end of next year as all the money you can raise will have been and gone and the same people will have made the same mistakes.

Its difficult not to let your heart rule your head but you need a sense of perspective with this one. Short term pain for long term gain or s**t or bust? I know which i'd choose as hard as that may seem. I wish you all the luck in the world.

Over the last two days I've gone through the same feelings of anger, disappointment and frustration that everyone is feeling about the situation we are in. I don't want to go into administration as we would lose our only major assets, the players. I don't want to end up watching a Championship 1 side playing at Horsfal Playing fields as Odsal would not be a feasible venue for such a club. So I'm faced with a choice. Do I pledge and help save the club I have supported for over sixty years and then help to sort out the mess we seem to be in or do I take the negative route and complain, blame and watch the club go under. I have decided to pledge because I can see a light at the end of the tunnel. We do have the makings of a team to be proud of here with young players who want to be here. Just look on Twitter and read what Elliott Whitehead and John Bateman are saying and doing. They're not giving in and neither am I.

some interesting stuff in the paps www.sportinglife.com/rugbyleague ... ml&BID=480 www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/hav ... -1-4391031

some interesting stuff in the paps www.sportinglife.com/rugbyleague ... ml&BID=480 www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/hav ... -1-4391031

www.bradfordbulls.co.uk/news/578 ... VAL%20FAQS Apologies if covered already but can someone clarify the section good news for you as it mentions you would be debt free, how could this be as apart from administration and starting afresh I am puzzled if my thoughts are correct then those asked to pledge should be concerned and maybe ask the question of your board.

www.bradfordbulls.co.uk/news/578 ... VAL%20FAQS Apologies if covered already but can someone clarify the section good news for you as it mentions you would be debt free, how could this be as apart from administration and starting afresh I am puzzled if my thoughts are correct then those asked to pledge should be concerned and maybe ask the question of your board.

Not sure if this has been posted, but here's El Presidente's two penneth: www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/n ... -1-4390994 Difficult to tell if he's actually offering anything of substance or just indicating his predatory intent regarding poaching players... No doubt you'll be relieved he's not contemplating a take-over

Not sure if this has been posted, but here's El Presidente's two penneth: www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/n ... -1-4390994 Difficult to tell if he's actually offering anything of substance or just indicating his predatory intent regarding poaching players... No doubt you'll be relieved he's not contemplating a take-over

I don't trust current board, or hood and Bennett at least. Think duckett is being as honest as he can be. BUT my problem all talk of going into admin and reforming etc while in an ideal world I would agree it could be best way forward, back in the real world I can't see club surviving it. If their was a buyer waiting in the wings and a prepack admin used to clear historical debts and retain current players then fair enough. But I've seen and heard nothing to suggest that is the case.
First thing an administrator would do is start selling assets to minimise debts. The only assets we have are the young players we desperately need to retain. So a reformed club faces prospect of potentially limping along for rest of this franchise period, stripped of it's best players with crowds dropping as a side effect then dropping to championship in 2015. We then have to find somewhere to play in championship as odsal/ vp not financially viable at that level and TTY yo devils towards SL in 2018. Weve struggled to get through current five years of rebuilding and are just seeing green shoots. Don't think fanbase is there to ho through it all again.

Don't like it as it supports poor management but don't see an option but tonpledge and support current board. Way I see it extra £100 is just what i would have normally paid got my season ticket under old prices. If it means there's a chance of carrying on at something like current level then I'm prepared to risk that much.

I'm not sure that I want to see a plan as I probably wouldn't put much trust in it anyway. But I think the board do have an responsibility to give more information about the current situation. I'd like to see a statement along the lines of:

"We owe RBS £x, HMRC £x (increasing at £x per month). We owe the RFL £x and other creditors £x. Our monthly expenses are roughly £x. We are currently taking £y net per match at the turnstiles and bars. We are due a minimum of £y from Sky for the rest of the season and £y from other sources (assuming we dont make the play offs or get to Wembley)."

No doubt the Board would argue that this stuff is commercially confidential, but when you've got the begging bowl out you lose the right to that sort of primness.

Fair bit of time on my hands at the moment so have been watching the last couple of days with great interest whilst spending a lot of time on here reading peoples posts from many different clubs.

Firstly Id like to say how disappointed I am to see the state the Bulls are in. It would be a massive blow to Super League to lose one of the big clubs and a huge blow to our game in general. I sympathise 100% with all you Bulls fans because this $hitty situation you find yourselves in has absolutely nothing to do with the fans. Poor management at the very top has led to this situation and is wholly unfair on the people who dig deep year in year out to effectively allow the club to run.

I know there have been a fair few Wakefield fans already come on here who are offering their opinion (some of you seem to be getting annoyed by our intervention ) but at the end of the day our situation is almost identical to yours - our then chairman was asking for us to pledge £1000 not £100 and the takers were minimal. Even if the old management team would of asked for £100 like your being asked for I can say with confidence that again the number of Wakefield fans 'pledging' would have been low. The reason being we might as well walked to a cash machine - withdrawn the money and simply tore it up and thrown it away. All they wanted was a short term fix. Could we have achieved it ? Yes - no doubt between the fans, sponsors etc we would have reached the target but WE as a club didnt want to continue with the same BOD. They have promised things over so many years and failed to deliver, they had told us we were financailly ok- we weren't. When the HMRC came knocking asking for a massive unpaid tax bill it caught us fans out by surprise due to the constant lying from above. So, as supporters we set up a new supporters trust where pledges could actually make a difference once admin had taken effect. Gamble - yes big time. We could easily of lost our franchise and played in the lower leagues but the most important thing to the majority of the fans the club was safe, debt free and would be taken on by the fans or somebody with a bit of financial clout shouldthe opportunity arise. Luckily Andrew Glover has come along and the amount of work and money he has put into our club is fantastic. He has delivered more in the last 6 months than what we have had in the last 10 years.

Bradford could easily have the same. I have no doubt there are some big hitters out there sitting tight waiting to see what happens. Should you go into admin Im guessing there would be a number of quality bids to come on board. But if you all give in now and send them your £100 etc all your doing is saving the guys who have put you there in the first place.

Save your money - let them go - invest in a new supporters trust/club - and rebuild. That way the next trip to Old Trafford or Wembley wont be that far away !

Good luck.

It was quite a surreal day yesterday. I couldn’t get to my PC so was keeping in touch by iphone, I could tell it was serious as new pages were appearing quicker than I could scroll down the one I was reading. Everything that I think has been said already. I would prefer a community owned model as suggested by Anarkik. I would be happy stumping up £100 but not until I have some confidence that there is a sustainable model. That would include a management team who have more to offer than the current lot, which might seem like stating the bleedin obvious but it just might be that there is no long term solution without a sugar daddy to keep it afloat.

I'm not much further forward to deciding wether I'm going to pledge or not. I'd still like the answers to the questions posed regarding money, and where it went/where its going and what happens next, but I'm agonising over wether or not we want to avoid administration.

I do not believe we'd fold, or cease to exist - but i do realise that if we went into administration we'd lose our players, we'd lose points and possibly lose a super league franchise? do we want that?

or, is that the only way to get rid of the current board, limp along until a buyer is found then start from scratch pretty much? is there anyone who'd even want to buy the club?

I think I will pledge, because the thought of losing the best players suffering a points deduction and getting humped every single week, and possibly losing super league rugby completely is a very dark thought.

If what I am led to believe is correct, if overdue tax liabilities are not settled within the next couple of weeks, HMRC is expected to petition the High Court for a winding-up order. That would immediately require the club's directors to apply to the High Court to appoint an administrator.

Leaving aside how those liabilities arose and came to be unpaid, how long this situation has existed for, why many fans clearly feel they were misled in January and everything else that has shocked and appalled most fans, if this indeed be the case then there seems to be two choices:

1 - Provide the club with cash - by whatever means - so it can settle the pressing liabilities and avoid administration.

2 - Allow the club to go into administration.

It would seem time is of the essence, if administration is to be avoided. I have to say that all this talk of new supporters foundations, trusts or whatever organising fundraising with the intent of securing a shareholding in the club, and thereby providing it with a capital injection, is IMO almost certainly misguided as a means of achieving 1. Do any of you guys considering it have any conception whatsoever of just what would be involved?

As one who does, I have to warn you that IMO you have far far too little time to form a new vehicle to achieve this. Far too little time. It took us months to bring Bullbuilder into being. Go ask Wakey about how long it took them to bring THEIR trust into being. They were trying to do it over the period when their club went belly-up, but they never had anything like the time.

Raising funds in a bucket is the relatively easy part. Anyone ever tried to open a new bank account recently? No bank will do it without there being a properly-constituted entity, with a valid constitution and appointed officers and heaven knows what else. And without a bank account, how can you collect the funds?

I'm not trying to dampen the enthusiasm of those who are looking at this route to solving the immediate cash flow crisis that we are assured exists. Just pleading with those enthusiasts to think it through carefully and understand what the timelines - and the massive time commitment by those who take it on - are likely to be.

Even trying to raise money for a shareholding using an in-situ vehicle (and Bullbuilder is the only one I am aware of that is already set up) would involve a great deal of time and work - as well as a lot more pairs of hands to share the workload, and be there for the long haul not just the sexy initial stage when you can be in the public eye. If the deadline is as pressing as the club says (and I have been assured that it is, for what that may or may not be worth) then I do not believe there is time for even an in-situ vehicle to achieve what is required.

If there was more time, then the situation could be very different.

We come anyway to a second issue. Basically, I would expect the club will likely do its level best to resist any attempt by supporters to acquire collectively a significant shareholding in the club. Why? Because that would immediately make the club a much less attractive proposition to any prospective majority investor. If you were seeking to take a majority stake in a RL club, would you be happy if part of the shares were held by a supporters' collective? Especially if that holding was more than a blocking 25%. And especially if you were considering investing at the present time. And yet a new investor is probably the only long-term solution to the club's situation. We really need a Pearson-type person, to step in and take over the business as a going concern.

And I say that as someone who supports the principle of supporter investment and at least partial-ownership of sports clubs. But as someone who has to reconcile himself to the likely financial realities of the current situation.

So how about the idea, widely promoted by visitors from outside and argued passionately by Maislebugs and others on here, of allowing the club to fold and go into administration? Time right now does not allow me to go into the pros and cons in detail, but it certainly IS an option that warrants careful consideration.

It would allow a new investor - if there is one - to take control and start with a clean sheet. We saw that at Wakey, although with respect to them it was a smaller and rather less complex operation and situation. That is potentially a big benefit, one that the proponents of the administration route are rightly flagging up.

And it would mean the club gets to screw the taxpayer big-time, same way as Wakey and Crusaders and London did, by not paying its debts. remember, we are talking monies that the club collected (or should have collected) from employees, customers and others that was never the club's money. Personally, I find the business of screwing the taxpayer morally repugnant, and have said so repeatedly in the past that in my book it is tantamount to theft, but what I feel counts for nothing in the wider scheme of things.

And what about all the other suppliers to the club? Many are small businesses. Maybe some of you guys work for one of them. Some of you guys ARE ones of them. You get to make your pledge regardless - by not getting paid, and maybe losing your job.

Another downside is that all contracts can get cancelled. For example, the lease with the RFL would be voided. One presumes the RFL would seek to enter into a new lease with whatever phoenix company arose with whom a new lease could be negotiated. But would those terms be as favourable as the present lease? Who knows. At least the head lease would likely not be affected, since that is between the council and the RFL now.

And, most seriously of all perhaps, the administrator would be inundated with offers for our young stars. Doubtless the salary caps of the monied clubs would become even more flexible to accommodate them. The administrator would be duty-bound to consider very seriously any offers received - and a player would anyway be a free agent. Look what happened to Wakey.

There are loads of other considerations, but those are just some quick ones, for and against.

If someone had put together a prepack administration, so that we would be in and out of administration within 24 hours and with the prior agreement of the RFL and the council and the new players' union and other
relevant stakeholders, then administration could well work. If the process dragged on, like Wakey's did, I fear the damage that would be done over that interim period could be irreversible.

Prepacks normally only happen when either the existing management or shareholders, or a party working closely with them, is the purchaser. Otherwise, the time scale involved is far too long. Can we see that happening in this case? I doubt it. And anyway, I can see the proponents of administration understandably and most definitely do NOT want to see the same faces involved.

And what of the prospects of reforming post-administration and playing in the lower leagues? Wouldn't be at Odsal - could not afford it. How many would rally want to watch a team where your very best player was probably well short in ability of those perceived as the worst on our books?

So we have a timescale and other factors that mitigate against a shareholding involvement, and a high-risk administration option that might be salvation or it might lead to oblivion. And then we have the club's own proposal, which is we all chuck a load of money in the bucket for them to use to pay off the taxman and others, and keep the club going, and maybe show to potential investors that the club is worth investing in because of the passion and commitment of its fans.

Short of winning Euromillions, or Ken Morrison shocking us all, those seem to be our alternatives.

Spoilt for choice, aren't we?

fantastic post Adey.

think you just made my mind up for me.

Great post adey. One further thing. Administration would solve the mess that is the shareholding as well as the board. Whilst it's easy to blame individuals, this is actually the real core of the problem which if not dealt with I believe will inevitably bring us back to where are now, only weaker.