Bradford have reportedly been in 'special measures' for a while and the use of the phrase "will remain in" suggests that to be true. So nothing to do with the relocation plan.

The argument that Chalmers put out was that it was unsustainable for Bradford to remain at Odsal. However in the latest statement we are told that all the money saved from not being at Odsal will be put into players, either academy or first team.

So either the latest statement is a lie or Chalmers previous statements re Odsal costs are a lie.

Numbers don't add up for Odsal. Poor facility and high wage bill.

Bulls want to save money by going to Rams, but want to throw even more money at players and not invest in a return to the city.

Of course RFL are unimpressed.

Only Toronto have a bigger wage bill in that division. Crazy!

Which essentially means Bradford want to spend on players rather than infrastructure. Which is what got them (and plenty of other clubs) in such a mess in the first place.

I don't know what inside knowledge you have on the championship club finances, but Kear has stated in the press that oor bill is lower than all the teams in the playoff spots, bar York.

I know who i believe

He's also stated that he expects his goalkicker to have an 85%+ success rate.....

I know they keep repeating this on the Forty20 podcast but it’s still no closer to being true.

Not that that makes Chalmers or rfl any less culpable for whatever it is that’s going on.

That’s true to a certain extent. There was also overspending on full time staff that nobody seemed to know what they did, poor accounting practices, secret loans from RFL, property deals to try and claw that back, thinking you could get away without paying vat by calling season tickets memberships etc etc.

To cut a long story short something much murkier than just a bit of overspending on players has been going on for at least 10 years now. Involving RFL and the business men that still seem to be queuing up to get involved with it.

As a fan it’s getting to the point that I simply can’t continue to be taken for a ride. The fact the games governing body are up to their necks in it leaves a really bad taste that puts you off the sport as a whole. Some of the garbage we get thrown at us by opposition fans off the back of decisions made by other people whether they are connected to the club or not and completely out of our control as fans just add to that.

So 6 professional clubs playing in the Wakefield postcode!

I don't follow the podcast.

I don't expect you to take my word for it. You will believe what you want to believe.

Special measures is not something imposed on a whim...there are financial issues at Bulls, all centred around budgeting on making the play-off final.

Bulls pay ridiculous FT wages.

The Yorkshire Sydney

Do you have evidence to back up that claim?

Yes, but not that I'm going to share on here.

You end up in special measures when your income and expenditure don't fit. Dumping the money pit of Odsal is an attempt to fix that, but the RFL still say the numbers don't work.

It comes back to that phrase which Bulls and its fans have never accepted..."cut your cloth".

If Bulls don't go PT, they will go bust again.

If they stay as they are, in terms of the squad that they have and assuming there is some improvement, they will very likely make the play offs next season but, you are right. They dont appear to have the income to support their wage bill et and that can only end in tears.

Yeah, and I've got evidence of who really shot JFK, which celebrities are actually giant lizards and who's going to win the next 4 World Cups. But I'm not going to share that on here.

You use the phrase "cut your cloth" - that's exactly what the Bulls are looking to do by moving to Dewsbury. You even make that point. The Bulls are working on a hybrid system with a mixture of FT and PT players. The RFL said that the Bulls were financially able to run a reserve grade team a short while ago when other teams were denied that right. Strange that it seems that moving out of Odsal has caused the RFL to now question the finances at Bradford.

And that announcement that was released on Friday, just before the bank holiday weekend, it's a petty and spiteful act by the RFL - especially as the Bulls have recently announced their season tickets and the information put in the release seems calculated to damage those sales. There was no need to announce the Bulls as being in special measures on the back of the agreeing their move to Dewsbury.

Bulls were in special measures months back.

For as long as the average neutral refuses to acknowledge, or downplays the murky involvement of the RFL then you'll all be a potential victim of it down the line. No one asks any questions.

And by the way none of that means I don't acknowledge the sustained mistakes of the bulls. People seem to act as if the two things are mutually exclusive.

The RFL made mistakes with the shady deals to help the Bulls.

In the long run, they don't seem to have helped, but without them, Bulls would ceased to exist many moons ago.

With hindsight, the RFL should have kept out of it.

Yeah course you have



You don’t have to be “in the know” to work out that the current owners are over spending. The accounts show that.

But the point, as Him pointed out, is they aren't 'cutting their cloth'. All Chalmers wants to do is swap round the club's expenditure and spend less on the ground and more on players so there won't actually be any financial savings at all. Even then that's probably based on crowds increasing given the likely reduction in admission prices.

And there you have it. As I said earlier, if you want to believe the RFLs actions have been nothing but altruism towards the bulls then they'll have got away with it.

Not sure why you have made a selective quote. My point was that, in making shady deals to help the Bulls, they have undoubtedly made it worse.

One crucial result, is that other clubs (and clearly their fans), have little sympathy or trust for the Bulls.

Good will is gone.

Hey dboy, I don’t know what planet your on but if I recall the only thing the rfl did yo help Bradford was share all there sky monies out to other superleague clubs, now if that is helping the bulls out then I pitty anyone else in trouble

You must have a very selective memory then, what about the cash the R.F.L. chucked Bradford's way prior to meltdown
No 1?

You know the one, when they "loaned" the club a shed full of cash on the quiet, I know their (The R.F.L.s) actions appear to be the main catalyst for the Bulls demise, but this initial financial injection wasn't a cunning plan to ruin one of S.L.'s flagship clubs.

The RFL made a secret loan to Bulls to keep them from going pop.

When they couldn't pay it back, they pretended to "buy" the lease to stop "predatory speculators getting their hands on Odsal".

Now you can't afford the rent.

The secret deals, advancing central funds, the sham lease purchase, all done to save a basket case.

This is why Hudgell, Carter and Davy wanted SL clubs to buy the lease...they feared its value would be written off to further help the Bulls.