Quote Mr Dog="Mr Dog"FFS Adey, when the news of the sale of the lease broke you were telling us that your 'sources' at the Club were assuring you that it wasn't cos The Bulls were in financial trouble but to merely see off predatory approaches to take over Odsal. Well that was truthful wasn't it? And, yet, you're still ready to accept the guff coming out of the Club as gospel? Unfortunately, you and the rest of the gullible souls out there are quite likely to be shortly getting a rude awakening.'"
I knew the club was in financial trouble. Patently obvious from the accounts, from seeing the RFL take a charge in January 2011, from the rumours leaking out of Red Hall, from the sale of Andy Lynch and from a host of other tell-tale signs.
As far as I could see, the club was facing the prospect of the only solution being purchase by someone like Parkin (I presume the "predators" that the RFL - not the club - referred to). Someone who seemed to be more interested in getting the Odsal site, and in using the Bulls to reduce the operating costs of real-target Bradford City. The outlook for the Bulls in such circumstances seemed to me poor. Very limited money made available, and death by a thousand cuts.
The RFL's purchase of the lease seemed to stymie that as the "only" option, protecting Odsal and at the same time providing immediate funds to stabilise the financial position and allow the club to settle the image rights tax and ride out the recession until the economic climate improved.
One day the role of the council in all this will maybe become more clear. I think most of us realised that they had no real appetite for any kind of development at Odsal, however it was funded and by whom.
It was obvious that the club had been advanced monies by the RFL - the 1/11 charge was evidence of that. The club never acknowledged that, same way as other clubs that received advances on monies from the RFL have never done so. No surprises there. The terms of the advances almost certainly precluded their being made public anyway.
I expected there would be some monies to pay back - Q4 is always very lean cash-wise, so it was a no-brainer. I was shocked when I learned the amount, since that showed the club was in far worse financial straits than even cautious me had realised. Don't forget, I've been ploughing a lonely furrow for years about the Bulls' dire financial position, in the face of so many fans assuring me it must not be so!
The club did not actually lie - the sale itself was not a bail-out. The bail-out had already happened with the advances (which, as I have said, were larger than I ever imagined). Disingenuous, maybe - and yes, by me as much as by the club - but reflecting commercial necessity, I think.
The sale seemed to be - and as far as I can see, remains - a win-win. The RFL received a strategic asset at what can only have been a distressed sale price - I did keep trying to suggest that it was likely to be a good deal for the RFL, but kept getting shot down - and the club was saved from Valley Parade and IMO eventual oblivion, or more immediate oblivion if they tried to stay put at Odsal.
Did the club lie to me? I cannot see that they did. Were they disingenuous? Without a doubt. Did I realise they were being disingenuous? Those who know me will attest to that. Was I shocked how bad the financial position really was, and therefore at the degree to which they had been disingenuous, albeit through necessity? Absolutely. Are there still unanswered questions about all this? Most definitely, and I listed a load out for reference for a meeting we have with the board in the next day or two. Do I think this Pledge business is the best way for everyone to solve the problem? Of course not; but in the time frame I have concluded it looks to be the ONLY way.
BUT...do I think that allowing the club to go into administration, seeing the back of the present 3-man board and the crazy shareholding stasis that is one underlying cause of the problems, would be a better outcome than trying to plug the current funding gap now and holding the inquest afterwards when matters are less pressing? In the absence of even the slightest hint of a prepack waiting in the wings, and given the massive risks of too many assets being lost for good in a protracted administration - no, I do not.
And that, my friends, is why I have formed the view that I have.