As I understood it (and I admit I may be wrong) Halifax initially competed with Widnes for the franchise which had been reserved for a club not in the current SL. When that bid failed (as everyone expected) they were invited to bid for a franchise in competition with the SL clubs. As these two applications were distinct surely they could have received feedback from the first failure and used it to bolster their second bid. When was the Widnes/Halifax result announced and what was the deadline for all the other clubs (including Halifax) to submit their bids?

December I think was when Halifax, Barrow and Widnes submitted and April 1st when Super League sides submitted theirs. I imagine that the Halifax bid as submitted in December would be compared against the Super League bids submitted at the start of April and I wouldnt have expected Halifax to be told of 'weaknesses' and given another chance as they'd be seen as having had an advantage - in that regard, every SL side could have asked for a feedback stage and chance to re-submit in advance of the final selection as Halifax would have had that opportunity. That said, maybe Halifax were allowed to submit a bid to be compared only against the SL clubs in April...but i doubt they could have had a feedback loop for teh reasons already outlined.

Like you - I could be wrong, but that is what would seem to me to be the approriate way of doing this.

Either way - it doesnt change the fact that a bid was made and seen to be not as good as the others. and there ends the conspiracy.

No it isn't an entirely different point , and as for going down different tangents making different points , that probably because the points I make , don't get answered , as I stated surely the RFL , after helping Fax to ' Qualify ' to apply , would want them to submit as strong an application as possible , as they would for all the applicants ?

Without reading the whole thread, has anyone noticed how, in the case of Wakefields bid...

Wakefield Trinity Wildcats’ application confirmed that new ownership has injected enthusiasm, capital and business acumen into the club. The business plan provided achievable targets for growing the business, and a realistic strategy to reach these targets. Wakefield’s performance on the field and player supply across the current Licence period has been acceptable and their community programme is excellent. However commercial, financial and governance performance in this Licence period has been poor, with the club entering administration in February of 2011.

You could replace Wakefield Trinity Wildcats with Widnes Vikings and 3 years ago got a very different result.

I don't see any reason why Halifax couldn't have been told very early on something like "There are some parts of your bid that do not have enough information for KPMG to complete their assessment procedures. You have 14 days to provide the necessary information or we will not be able to accept your bid this time."

This was supposed to be a process to find the best clubs for a SL license, not to trip clubs up with red tape.

It wouldnt have been looked at 'very early on' I don't think. usual practice for any bid process is that you look at them together once all the bids are in. indeed, when i've competitively bid for work in the past i'm asked to send a sealed envelope and from the other side, when i've assessed bids for things, i sign to say i opened a sealed envelope and had no prior site of the document.

This has always seemed tedious to me process wise but it is not 'red tape' per se but standard practice for bidding that would would ensure transparancy, fairness and also protect the RFL from litigation. If you provide advance feedback to one party, you are open to claims by all others that they too should have had the right to advance feedback. if you tell one bidder 'sorry, but this bit's a bit weak' then everyone else would have the right to know which bits of theirs were weak.

Imagine Halifax got in on the strength of a 're-submitted' bid where they had been given the chance to supplement elements. The unsuccessful club who Halifax beats based on that resubmitted bid would have a pretty strong legal case that they were not treated similarly and were not given that same opportunity.

you can often go back for more information, but only if the process you outlined at the start to all bidders allowed for that to be done. i don't know whether it was the case or not. as it is though, we cannot blame the RFL for some conspiracy if all they did was follow good practice that ensured a fair and transparent process. It seems to me that they probably did follow such a process.

All i'm sayiong is that if they'd followed standard 'bid' practice Halifax would have had known the criteria and requirements, they then put a bid in, it gets compared to other bids, and then feedback given after a decision is made. that seems to be the process that was followed.

the only bit that i think would need consideration and I honestly don't know about is is whether the Halifax bid of December was then compared to SL club bids from April without Halifax re-submitting. That'd be a tricky one to manage...logically, I'd think the RFL two options:

1) Use the December bid and compare against SL clubs
2) Require Halifax to submit a bid for April, but without any feedback on what they'd submitted in December -as the SL clubs about to bid could argue they'd not had that opportunity and were therefore at an unfair disadvantage.

just to reiterate the point.

If I was Salford, Wakefield, Castleford etc. and I heard that Halifax had been told "There are some parts of your bid that do not have enough information for KPMG to complete their assessment procedures. You have 14 days to provide the necessary information or we will not be able to accept your bid this time." I'd kick up a right fuss... "It's a bid process, they had the same infromation as all other sides with which to put together their bid, and if you consider their resubmitted elements without restarting the whole bid process again you'll be hearing from our lawyers"

on te basis of what we know (not what people have made up) - the Halifax bid was not as good as others. The real question if i was a Halifax fan would be why not? Who put the bid together, who didnt get it right?

isnt that what the RFL did with the crusaders bid? they said the figures dont add up and went back to them to ask more questions? Didnt Richard Lewis say something along the lines of, we are in constant communication with the club to discuss the licensing process? funny how Halifax then saw their refusal as a major surprise

I'm not a moaning Fax fan - I've always said a championship club is no competition for a super league club with the process as it is now. Didn't expect us to get the nod.

However two questions still need to be answered. Why would the RFL encourage Halifax to "massage" their crowd figures, for the last game of last season against Batley, to ensure that Fax's average attendance met the required average for application. And why allow Halifax to compete with super league clubs when their application was known to be p**s poor?

For your information mmp - Fax's, Widnes' and Barrow's bid was handed in the december before the super league clubs' so the RFL already knew its content. Unless they didnt bother reading it..................

Because there was always the possibility that however -poor Fax's application was, that there might have been less than 14 other applications that were less -poor.
However, relying on a competitor been less than you is never a good way to try to win.

A few people are saying this - and yet somehow Widnes managed to gain a SL place from the championship.

I really don't know why people are struggling with this. Halifax's bid wasn't as good as the other 13 so they aren't in. If someone else's had been worse, they would be in. That is all there is too it!

What I haven't seen in all this conspiracy theorising is a motive. All you doubters - can you tell us WHY the RFL would concoct an underhand, cloak and dagger process just to keep Halifax out? If Wakefield had not got a new chairman as good as Andrew Glover, then their future might be looking a good deal worse than it is and their application may have been worse than Halifax. But they did and it wasn't.

cheers, but i was aware of that. i even said it here...



doesnt change a thing though. they wouldn't have been able to suggest Fax change anything between the two stages....

it seems clear to me there was a process, Fax made a mess of it.

Still doesnt answer my questions though. Fax clearly weren't good enough so why engineer it so they could first of all apply and then why let them stay in the process, if the process is meant to ensure the best clubs are in super league?

Would they have let Fax in if their bid was better than an even worse one? That would do Fax and SL the world of good eh?

And mmp, the RFL gave Fax unfair advantage over Barrow by persuading us to massage our attencance figures. Hardly the fair process you talk of, some might say they favoured us over Barrow at that stage?

Fax entered a bid! and as said (more than once now) - once you enter a bid it would be wrong of the RFL to tell you it was bad and influence you to withdraw it...due process means they tell everyone the outcome at the same time.



Yes, presumably - as long as the minimum standards were met.

although it shows the bizarreness of this thread as it now seems to have not got to the point what Fax fans say they'd have been bad for Super League anyway so shouldnt have started an attempt!!!!



I know nothing about the 'massaged figures'. but they came before the actual bid process didn't they? The bid went in in December - from what's been said here, it seems a logical bid process to me.

Not arguing with you i'm just saying,Widnes wer judged against other champ clubs not SL clubs and how did/do the rfl judge that Andrew glover is a good chairman?.