Well, its a tough one isn't it. If a club does hit a financial wall and goes into administration, then they should be given a period of time to find new owners who are fit for purpose. If they can't then I think the only solution is to move them out of Superleague and into another division where the running costs are more affordable.

Overall, we need to urgently look at the way in which our sport is financed and governed. Clearly the whole licensing system needs to be strengthened in terms of the financial requirements for being a superleague club. I still dont understand why your problems wern't spotted when the licenses were reviewed last time. Any thoughts or are you all still in the dark about that?

You just described Bradfords plight. Are you saying one rule for Bradford and a different rule for "lesser" clubs?

I want Bradford to survive and be in SL, but don't believe that they should be made a special case

Probably for the same reason that the massive annual losses of the likes of Hudds, London, and - yes - Saints - did not seem to count against those clubs, even though (except for Hudds, where I believe Davy has made proivision) if something should happen to the rich owners they would almost certainly be up shìt creek almost immediately.

The elephant that was in the room then is still there, and if anything has grown even bigger. And it is standing on the same foundations of sand it ever was.

I'm an ex Leigh fan, not a Bulls fan, and I like you dont understand how less than 12 months earlier, this wasnt picked up by the licencing process, my other question is, are the RFL just now accepting the best available bid? , even if it isnt up to the original standard set, as that seems the case to me

Gareth (G1) is a Leeds fan, not a Bulls fan.

He is usually quite sensible, although he can't help trying to be clever on occasions. In fairness, he does spend a fair bit of his time in public service, winding up the great unwashed fekkwitery on Substandard which he can do in his sleep, so I guess we can make allowances?

No. IMO the RFL have known exactly what they were doing all along, and have contrived to totally sideline the administrator. Its actually pretty unprecedented that an administrator has been rendered so powerless?

Absolutely not. I was just stating my opinion. What I said in my post goes for any club, not just Bradford. I don't want to see any current Superleague club leave the competition. They should all go through the same process. Perhaps you should put your glasses on and read my post again!

I will try and find out at my club end of season dinner

I know all of the clubs you have mentioned did have massive losses, but the problems at Bradford where clearly a hell of a lot worse. I was just wondering why they wern't flagged up.

No they were not.

It looks like our operating loss in 2011 was c.£1m (which if Hood had been honest about earlier it might have saved us all a hell of a lot of heartache). That followed a loss of £0.3m in 2010, and break even and profits in previous years. At the time of the Licensing decisions, we were noit that far into 2011.

Now go compare that with the financial performance of some of our contemporaries.

Their losses were far worse.

The only difference is that we had to stand on our own feet, whereas those other clubs had a wealthy owner prepared to pay the bills. Why did the RFL not baulk at granting THEM Licences, given that in some cases the sudden demise of the owner would have led to the sudden demise of the club? Same reason: they can see the elephant in the room even if some others cannot. They know just how precarious the game is placed financially, and what would happen if one of the dominoes was to fall...

McManus [iis[/i someone who should be listened to. But not to directly take tips on how to run a self-sustaining RL club, Langtree Park notwithstanding. The increase in shareholders' funds at St Helens has arisen due to newly subscribed capital rather than through profits. His greatest success has been the Bulls' greatest failure - the ability to find another person or persons willing to stump up the millions of pounds required to prop up almost every Super League club.

Exactly my point, and the point that Gareth has missed. He's managed what the likes of Davy and Hughes, and Pearson and Wilkinson have not. Caddick managed it as well, in a different way.

Or in simple terms, to be a succsesful SL club, you need a sugar daddy, it was the lack of a single large financial backer that made the Fax application ' speculative '

What has now become even clearer is that the sustainability of many clubs is not through trading/revenue streams, but assisted capital finance in various guises