Having just listened to the start of boots an all I cannot believe what has been said! The Bradford chief exec is on saying that we want Bradford fans to dig deep and help the club( they already buy shirts lottery ,season tickets) they need them to donate £ 500,000 to keep the club going (possibly) as they really need a million! Bit he doesn't expect players to take a pay cut ? We then go back to the studio and phil says" the chief exec is doing a really good job" what? And all the fans should dig deep and help .... Now I must be missing something here but it sucks , basically they want the fans to tip up more money , they will still get there money directors staff et al . And they know the fans will try their best to keep it going , but surely it's like a hammer to crack a nut what happens in 6 months ? Cap in hand again ?

Being that bradford are now in such a financially perilous state, would/should it be prudent for the rfl to now with hold the monies it gives out to this club until such a time it sorts its problems out?

I think the bank did that already, which seems to have caused the problem in the first place.

Yea it sounds like that, but the sky tv money and possibly other funding that the govening body distribute arent a right,you have to justify it.Surely Bradford now scratching around to pay debts that were avoidable isnt the problem for the rfl or the game as a whole

If the version of events that a number of us have heard parts of, and have pieced together tonight, is broadly correct, then much of the present crisis is due to unexpected actions taken by third parties (not HMRC) in recent weeks that no club lacking a rich owner could anticipate or cover.

I'd prefer to get more of the tale before being more specific, but so far the tentative conclusion is that the club's plans and forecasts were blown out of the window by recent events it could not have reasonably foreseen.

Sorry if I've missed this in the thread, how much did Bradford owe the RFL and for what?

Bulls and RFL collude in "no one would have seen it coming" statement shocker!

Be careful Adey mate - you were let down before

Hope the Bulls survive - for mine, I wouldn't bail out that board of yours, let administration run its course and come back stronger.

But I know nothing of what's happening! All the best to you cattle all the same!

On the contrary it seems like this situation has been brewing for ages. Like you I'm just piecing together scraps of info but clearly at some point the Bulls have required a substantial input of cash from the RFL (one poster on totalrl.com says this was a £700,000 loan early in 2011). The suggestion is that Bradford then struggled to meet the repayments on the loan and in order to protect their monies and also secure RL at Odsal in the future, the RFL purchased the Bulls' lease (the above source says for £1.2m, Sporting Life states £2m). It maybe that the bank trousered the difference to pay off the existing o/d and then Oinevitably refused to renew the facility as the club no longer held the asset of the Odsal lease. So far from being a sudden an unexpected development, the Bulls current plight seems to have been brewing for some time.
Even if the RFL hadn't bought the lease, presumably Bradford would have maxed out on their o/d facility sooner rather than later at which point the club would have lost its home and the RFL a ton of cash.

Not quite.

It seems the Bulls indeed borrowed £700k in 2011 from the RFL (secured ion the assets by a second charge, incidentally - visible to all at Companies House from Jan 2011). When I put the £700k figure to the CEO he did not deny it.

It seems to me the deal to sell the stadium to the RFL was at least in part due to the club not being in a position to repay that loan. So the RFL got an asset instead. If so, puts Odsalgate 2012 into a whole new light now, eh?

I understand the loan to the RFL was not to be repaid immediately, so the club could use the funds from the sale to deal with other pressing issues (including tax, I think) and not have to rely on using the bank overdraft (I surmise).

It then seems that (for reasons I am unclear about) the RFL required the loan to be repaid now rather than when was originally (supposedly) agreed. SOmetime in the last few weeks.

The bank, it appears to me (and knowing from the horse's mouth they have been keen to get out of exposure to RL clubs for years) saw the cash coming in, and did what banks so often do and grabbed it and reduced the facility as a result. The Bulls had actually asked the bank for a small increase to help plug the gap for a few weeks because of the RFL loan repayment. The bank instead pulled most of the facility. I gather this was last week.

So the club appears (as far as I can deduce, anyway) to have been hit by a double-whammy: RFL requires earlier repayment of loan; Bulls look to use whole overdraft facility, and a bit more, to plug the gap for a few weeks; bank instead pulls rug from under them.

Also, there would be no value to the bank in the old Odsal lease in the event of insolvency, since it would be voided and the site revert to the council. So why would the bank treat it as the main security? Anyone?

Now if the above, which is a combination of public information, things I have been told and personal deduction, is anything like correct, how does that now make it look?

Like a small plate of facts smothered in a gallon of supposition sauce?

The key question in all of that is why did the Bulls find themselves having to borrow £700k from the RFL in the first place, rather than through normal commercial routes?

Were they really that toxic or lacking in assets that no commercial lender would touch them?

If so, how did the club to get into that state in the first place?

It's ok for Bulls BoD to point fingers at the RFL, at RBS or even at other clubs, but there has been a seriously high level of mismanagement at the club. The whole business appears to have been precariously tiered like a house of cards and at the first sign of a stiff breeze has toppled over.

if the RFL and the Bulls had a loan agreement in place, and presumably a repayment schedule - how could the RFL then demand sudden repayment? surely there was payment terms - and therefore the RFL cant just demand full repayment.

Come on Adey - If this is the true story, and we don't know, why does any bank or creditor call in their overdraft/loan on any company? For one main reason, they are at their limit or even over exposed and have grave doubts about the ability of said company to pay back their debts going forward! They also know this might lead to them getting little or no money back, but they can see no other way of forcing the issue and don't want to expose themselves for further or longer!

It is not rocket science is it!

However, this is a company and a sports club, so the BOD have taken the oppotuinity to emotionally blackmail the key ingredient that set them apart from most other companies... fans!

So, what better way to cover your own backside and poor management by getting the fans to pay your debt for you!

Come on Addy, wake up and smell the coffee... you have £100k there that has been pledged that Bullbuilder as a trust company could quickly turn from pledges to the club into money into an escrow account hled by Bullbuilder. Given that Andrew Glover bought Wakey, who owed out £700k, from O'Hara for £35k, I reckon Bullbuilder could have the club off the adminstraor for less than £100k. Raise the £500k and you have a nice little sum to keep the club going for a few months while you sweet talk some investors... if of course a new buyer, like Andrew, does not step in and beat Bullbuilder to it.

I think Bullbuilder and other prominent fans need to grow some balls... and quick!

Not if they default...

There’s bits I don’t understand here Adey.



You say that Bradford borrowed £700k in 2011, you then go on to say they didn’t pay the RFL back from the sale?

Sale of what, it was a loan at that time, wasn’t it?



How can the RFL require the loan repaid in the last few weeks, I was under the impression, with the purchase of Odsal, the RFL had recouped the loan & given the club the difference between the alleged £700k & whatever the final price they paid (1.2 – 2.0M) for the lease?

I just told you that I know - for an absolute fact, since it was a senior RBS official who told me - that RBS has for some time had no appetite for lending to RL clubs. Whether them taking the opportunity of a one-off cash receipt to pursue that policy is what actually happened seems to me credible, but only the parties involved will know for sure.

And don't you bloody well lecture me about growing balls. If I (and a number of others on the BB Board) had a shedload of time on our hands, Yes we probably WOULD look at wider options. But we don't We are working our balls off on our own accounts as it is, in our day jobs and businesses. We discussed precisely this last night, and concluded justy that. If others with more time and the necessary expertise want to come on board and pick this up and run with it, we would welcome them with open arms. As it is, we still have Board positions available because that so far has not been the case.

No better to be fair.

If what you say is correct (and it looks more than likely),

1) the existing set up got them into such a ty mess at the end of 2011 they needed £700k from the RFL at their most flush time of the year.
2) on that £700k loan the club met few if any of the repayments and as a result were forced to sell the only asset they had.
3) The lease sale left them with £500k they never anticipated so that doesn't count as part of the profitable, debt free future the board told you.
4) Their financial plan was either a lie, wrong or at best naive to the extent that whoever drew it up shouldn't be in business in the first place.
5) they have lost all their plannes money & the additional £500k with the excuse that the bank overdraft has cocked them up.
6) the latest report suggests it's a tax bill that has stuffed them
7) Peter Hood is still a lying ehouse that should not be allowed near the sport.

Sale of the Odsal lease, end of December 2011.

I was told the RFL had originally agreed that the loan need not be repaid out of the sale proceeds, but at a later date (which was told to me). This is either true or false. Without seeing the documentation intelf, I have to rely on what I am told - and indeed on what the Chairman has said in the public domain. In this, I assumed that if he was lying then the RFL would have issued a statement to that effect.

Why the proceeds were not paid net is unclear to me. Again, without seeing the documentation I have to rely on being assured (and for the above reason) that that was teh case.

And, to me the single biggest unanswered question in this whole affair, is how - and why - the RFL was able to call in now a loan that was supposedly repayable much later. This is the ONE big issue that simply does not stack up to me. And it is one we are trying to obtain some clarity regarding. Because if the agreement was simply a gentleman's agreement, and the club did not have a contingency plan in place for if the circumstances changed (e.g. RFL not receiving a load of expected cash from a major sponsor, just payment in kind...??) then that would be prima facie gross negligence. With all the consequences that entails.

But we get ahead of ourselves; shooting any culprits now will not save the club.

So by the sound of it, Bradford borrowed £700k at the beginning of 2011 for whatever reason.

They didn’t pay anything back on said loan for the rest of that year, they were then under the impression that the RFL bought the lease for, let’s say £1.5M, but the £700k loan was still owed as well.

So in affect they would have received £2.2M from the RFL & be able pay back the loan at their convenience.

Now I’m no great lover of the Red Hall lot, however, that’s a fair bit of cash out of the coffers, to throw at an ailing club.

There's a load of unnecessarily complicated nonsense being talked about the Bradford situation, with an uncomfortable dollop of sentiment and guilt-inducing histrionics thrown in for good measure.

The top and bottom of it is thus; the Bradford BoD have been spinning plates for a good while, in an attempt to continue spending way beyond their means. Just like in any business, that can only be sustained for a limited period of time and it would appear that in Bradford's case, that time has come to an end; Peter and Paul have got their heads together and worked out the scam.

It beggars belief that in response, the business themselves, the governing body, stars of the game and the media are rallying round, asking the 'RL family' to bail out the club (again) to the tune of £1 million; they didn't do that for any other club and nor should they - Bradford fans are being emotionally blackmailed, fleeced out of their hard-earned cash and if they hand more money to an incompetent BoD, will more than likely find themselves subjected to another begging campaign in the not too distant future.

Giving the incumbent BoD an escape route is absolute folly in my view, and I'm baffled that so many people appear to have been taken in.

What was the original 700k for, to help them over the Harris saga ?

Because, after a load of soul-searching, we concluded that it was unlikely that administration would produce the sort of happy outcome that you enjoyed. we concluded that - at best - we would be looking at a Crusaders-type situation.

And, in the time frame, we don't have anything like enough time to put together an alternative of our own.

I think most of us would rather take a punt on retaining our place in SL than watching Bradford Northern (2012) play Gateshead in front of a few hundred at Horsfall "Stadium".

I would consider that conclusion flawed, as I don't believe that the RFL would let Bradford implode to the dramatic extent you've described. At worst, you'll enter administration and rise like a phoenix from the flames, having shed all debts, a load of incompetent senior officials and possibly, a few players. You then begin a period of rebuilding, with a 3 year plan to repair the damage, restore confidence and never spend beyond your means again.

It was far from a happy outcome at WTW by the way - last season was a bleeding nightmare.

How do you rise from the flames with no cash? What do you use to pay the players, phoenix feathers?

Wakey had a benefactor, there is no certainty the Bulls will.

Exactly.

There was no certainty we would, yet I don't recall an RFL endorsed whip-round to preserve us, nor the Sky Sports team suggesting that SL without WTW was 'unthinkable.'

In fact, we did have the opportunity to be purchased by someone with massive resources at his disposal, but the RFL wouldn't give him sufficient assurances to maintain his interest.

If Bradford fans are in a giving mood, they should put the money they're pledging in escrow and offer it to whomever buys the club out of admin as seed money.