Bizarre indeed.

If the Bulls, or any team for that matter are wangled in, there is no need for fans to worry about relegation. A license will be given.

If Odsal is the future of SL let’s just give the Govt it’s money back and pack up.

Well if that is just Bull bait then lets see who you may annoy with that comment......

The grounds are not exclusively the future of course, it's people playing and watching that's the future. Last time I went to Odsal was Bradford.v.Leeds with a 10,000 crowd and it was a fantastic day all round. The Bradford.v.Leeds academy game is also keenly contested

I've also been to the modern keepmoat stadium with a few hundred in for the game between two clubs who don't have much of an amateur/junior scene at all and don't produce players....... .

Is there no end to your witty retorts cutting your opponent to the quick

Steady Ste, "corruption" is a hard word.......

Anyway one major criteria for a place in SL is how well you have done in the Championship. All applicants but Bradford have achieved at least 4th. But the criteria is that you only have to have achieved at least sixth. Bradford did achieve that Another is you must be solvent. And that must be since the start of 2018. Erm Bradford were last insolvent in 2017. Then a third criteria is market size with crowds and social media interest being the definition. Bulls score the best on that.

One criteria that is missing from criteria used to evaluate clubs in 2011 is if your club is more than 20 miles away from other clubs, you would score points . Bradford are of course closer than this to several clubs

The criteria include other things, but each criteria passed doesn't give you one point, the criteria will be "weighted", In that some things are more important than others. However no weightings are published.

At a guess things like (1) finishing place in the championship, (2)solvency and (3) good crowds could score two points each or "if necessary" three points each

Matt Shaw was kind enough to set out how the selection process will work and he basically suggested the panel will start with the answer and word back from that to get the scores.

So the bulls it is.

Sentellins will be looking over their shoulder, I smell a title challenge.

They'll bulldozer their way in, then bully their way to the top.

The normally hateful Matthew Shaw actually says it how it is in this column. The only bit he missed *in the design of getting Bradford back in Super League* is the criteria of having a minimum ground capacity of 5,000, while Dewsbury's Tetley's Stadium has a capacity of 5,100. In almost any place you look, the criteria is designed to score Bradford the most points. Remember how much per year the RFL are losing on an empty bomb crater called Odsal !!! https://www.totalrl.com/bringing-back-t ... er-league/

The normally hateful Matthew Shaw actually says it how it is in this column. The only bit he missed *in the design of getting Bradford back in Super League* is the criteria of having a minimum ground capacity of 5,000, while Dewsbury's Tetley's Stadium has a capacity of 5,100. In almost any place you look, the criteria is designed to score Bradford the most points. Remember how much per year the RFL are losing on an empty bomb crater called Odsal !!! https://www.totalrl.com/bringing-back-t ... er-league/

Bradford are arguably the biggest name of all those that have applied.

Good point and a name that gets the TV dishes sold and viewers tuning into their games against such as Leeds and Saints (remember the Chris Joynt last seconds try against the Bulls) . Can't say it enough that the future is about keeping SKY happy with the content, not so called "expansion"........

Tuff on whoever wants to moan about it whether they are so called "expansion" fans or fans of small English clubs who believe that the first consideration in any decision of this type is "Fairness". They have no vote.

The first consideration as we try to get SKY to sign us up again has to be deliver what they want. That's not anything other than the biggest 12 names in English Rugby league to attract maximum subs/dishes for our broadcast partners without whom we are dead. As for the second consideration there isn't one anymore........

Yet SLE & the RFL are trying to hoodwink the entire RL population into believing just that, it is a fair & transparent process, without favour or malice, while the evidence suggests exactly the opposite that, at best it is flawed & disingenuous & at worst is the single biggest conspiracy to deceive & fraudulent.