Actually, when you posted you were not. Your post was made before any of those threads were started.

And one of those threads was anyway started by a fax supporter, one by a (admittedly genuinely concerned) declared opponent of the current administration, and the third by a well-known agitator who promised he would offer to pay the chairman for the head coach's sacking personally - but seems to have not got round to putting that offer in writing.

The Bulls' current dismal performances are bound to encourage questions such as yours though - maybe because of you having plenty of recent experience of your own club propping up the competition, as Bulliac points out, so you can relate? I see no issue in the question being asked, provided it is asked for the right reasons and not as a means of gloating.

You are very wrong about the young player pipeline, though - you should know, since you enticed two of our best prospects away by big-money offers. And you are very wrong about having no stadium development plans - as you surely well know since the OSV project is hardly both new and secret?

I took your original question at face value. But I think you have to be wary of giving the impression of gloating, when you are a supporter of a club that has got to where it is today primarily on the back of the largesse of its multi-millionaire respected owner?

It's not worked out on points.

The RFL has listed the areas of criteria and within each of those is what an A Grade club should be doing and they'll be marking clubs against that criteria.

Not sure everyone has yet appreciated the subtle, but potentially significant, change in the licensing criteria.

Does not help that I do not think the RFL has actually published the "A-Grade" criteria? If they HAVE, could you or someone point me in the right direction?

The risk with setting any criteria is that you can skew them towards getting the result you require. For instance, you could say that an A Grade club would have no open terraces, and the more open terracing you have (regardless of seating capacity) the lower by comparison you will be marked. And that this criterion is seen as totally fundamental to the process. By that means you could engineer it that Bradford were ejected since, despite having over 6,000 seats, they have a huge stadium of open terracing. (Close the Rooley Avenue terrace and problem solved in that case...)

Or you could rule that an A-Grade club would not be dependent on the largesse of its wealthy owner, and (in non-recessionary times) had consistently made profits or only small losses over the past 3-4 years. And say that THAT was seen as fundamental. That would grant Bulls an A-Grade, but eject most of the sugar-daddied clubs.

So if anyone HAS seen the A-Grade criteria, and the rules regarding how failure to achieve those criteria are assessed and graded, I'd very much appreciate sight of them. Ta.

Nope, they've not been released but then again the amount of information clubs have to submit I'm not surprised.

I was told the Bulls submission was some 1,600 pages...

I wonder if the clubs know the criteria? They surely MUST, especially since ultimately it is the clubs that run the RFL, and the questions must indicate the criteria being assessed? In which case, why are they not being published? And just how much subjectivity and scope for "exceptions" does that keep from view? Unless the process is clearly set out for us to see, there will always be conspiracy theories about why x club was let in and y club was ejected. IMO.

you cant release the criteria until you have decided which clubs you want to keep

otherwise you might look foolish by say making financial stability important then removing that importance when one club goes bust, or say making crowds a criteria, warning clubs with low crowds and then later saying you shouldn't judge certain clubs on crowds

Stupid me - should have realised that.

The reason 'the criteria' hasnt been released is to stop people making a similar mistake. The problem almost all conspiracy theories have is that they attack totally the wrong point. I.e 'the criteria' has been/will be fudged to get the result the RFL (in these crazy theories this is usually an expansion club) want.

The problem with that is the RFL dont decide which clubs are in and which clubs are out on how many points are scored from 'the criteria'. The only way the criteria guarantees your acceptance is if you score an A grade, and others dont.

The franchise process is a tender process. The RFL choose the best bids, not the ones which meet the most criteria(outside of the A grade), but the ones which are the best. This is a subjective opinion based on every single aspect of the club. Every little one. Some clubs may get in because of something they do well outside 'the criteria'.
There will always be conspiracy theories not because 'the criteria' is secret (it isnt btw, the clubs are told, and even had input on them) but because it is a necessarily subjective decision based on plans for the future. With something like this, it is understandable that people simply refuse accept that someone else, with a lot more information, came to a different conclusion to what they did, it is understandable the retreat to conspiracy theory. But they are simply wrong.

If a club wants to guarantee its place in SL, be an A grade club, if you cant, you need to accept that your club is failing to be where they need to be and maybe dropped.

Or in other words , who makes Nigels favourite butties the best

I remember going to Hudds-Salford a few weeks ago, and remember two blokes with claret and gold tea cosys on their heads standing up and acting the goat. One of them had DURHAM on the back of his shirt.

This post doesn't surprise me at all.

And FWIW, Bradford will definitely NOT lose their license this time around, partly on the back of obtaining a B license this time meaning (I think) we can't be excluded this time.

So...what are the criteria for an A-Grade club then? The criteria that if met guarantee you a Licence?

There are 50 of them, in 5 areas, they havent been released to us but they have to the clubs who had input on them. it doesnt quite guarantee you a licence, it guarantees you a licence if you are one of 13 or less clubs who scored an A grade. Though if 14 out of 14 applications do score an A grade, someone somewhere has f@cked up badly.