Image rights? Inland Revenue. It will be one or the other if not both.

Surely if it was the image rights issue , the club would have stated as such , they would be stupid not to , that would at least get them some sympathy from the general RL community as other clubs might also have the same problem

They have lost their RBS facility too which has (or it seems) to have wiped out any liquidity they have, it wouldn't be hard to imagine them forecasting a decent season with the players they have, add around 3500/4000 to each home gate for a decent team it doesn't take long to hit the million.

Throw into that the RFL taking back their money in one lump sum out of the Odsal lease and you've got a problem.

The Odsal lease ' money ' isn't real cash though is it , they havent ' given ' , or the RFL ' taken ' anything

And if their financial survival was underpinned by ' forecasting a decent season with the players they have ' then they have done exactly what the licencing system was supposed to stop

They will like most clubs have forecasted a sensible [ you would hope ] average attendance including those 3,500/4,000 already , anything above that is a bonus , generally sports clubs are far too optimistic with their estimates , its not like they have only just taken over the club , they have a lot of recent history to work with

Assuming they did owe the RFL a fair wedge, not really. If they had folded the RFL would have received a few pence in the pound on their investment. By allowing them to compete at the top level and carry on for a bit longer the idea is to manage the debt and generate a better value return.

Acting as a good creditor would if they could.

IF

and its a big if, they did allow them to continue in order to manage the debt then the question surely must be should the RFL if it is financially involved in clubs be in a position to award licenses or should this be and independent process by some accountancy or law firm etc.

Adam Pearson's takeover of HullFC revealed a lot of skeletons in the closet. For years us Hull fans had been told that the club was making profit and was an 'A Grade' club. What was revealed was that while the club was indeed profitable, it was being run on a shoe string budget and just 1/2 bad seasons (and reduced crowds) would have caused severe problems.

That 'bad' season came last year, and the club lost 300K.

Adam Pearson has since come in and paid off the debts and sorted out a payment plan for a large off-shore payment related tax bill.

the scary thing is that HullFC where graded by the RFL as a 'Grade A' club, with a top class ground, averaging 13/14K, appeared in 2 CC finals and a Grand Final in the last 7 years and turn over £1million in merchandise/shop sales alone. If things were looking that bad at Hull then I dread to think what other SL clubs books look like.

Everyone. Every club in SL is going bust. FFS.

Then let The Championship be your saviour brother.

Hallelujah!!!

Same way in which Greece met the fiscal requirements for joining the Euro.

This is also very solid analysis. Cutting remarks like these belong on HIGNFY.

I'd bet Bradford - like every other club - were banking on a lot bigger central sponsorhip deal than they got. The RFL will in fact have allowed all clubs to include that sort of money. Stobart advertising is nothing like the same as hard cash.

Then that in itself was a stupid thing to do, all clubs should realistically budget to operate on 80/90 % of their previous years income, any fluctuations in revenue due to on field performance or economic conditions can be catered for

It really isnt rocket surgery, and the licence system allows for it

But as we know, human nature comes into the equation, just as was pointed out at the start of this system