No club has gone bust while holding a licence yet.
If Bradford had plans to improve their income and didn't disclose such things like no VAT on season tickets, and they still had at that point no reason to assume their overdraft would be withdrawn, given the strengths of the rest of the club such as playing strength, playing record, youth development etc I would imagine Bradfords application would be significantly stronger than any of the Championship clubs and probably the applications of Wakey, Cas, Salford & London at the time.

IIRC Fax's application was denied as it didn't provide enough detail for KPMG to carry out their work, and then the Fax Chairman didn't help himself with a public whinge. At the time, did anyone seriously think that Halifax was one of the 14 best clubs in the country? 15th or 16th possibly but I think the 14 current SL clubs were easily the best 14 clubs.

Sounds good to me.

The Bulls put together a licence application that satisfied KMPG on the financial front. That's why they were awarded a licence. And hence my point about maybe a more in-depth examination of club finances is needed (although not likely to be agreed). The process as it stands - a process [iagreed and authorised by the clubs[/i was followed.


The RFL loan clubs money all the time - you just usually don't hear about it as nothing goes pear-shaped. I agree they could have been more open about the underlying reason behind the purchase - although nothing they said was actually [ifalse[/i - but that would have meant releasing the Bulls private financial in public. Something which would have required the agreement of the Bulls at least.


Once again, both the Fax bid and the Bulls bid were rated by KPMG. It was KPMG, not the RFL, that flagged up the weaknesses in Fax's application. The licences were awarded off the back of the information provided in the bids and the assessment provided by KPMG. Which brings us back to point 1.


It doesn't reveal anything to be a sham. What it does do is show that the current level of scrutiny undertaken by KPMG is not sufficient to uncover things that the applying club either wishes to hide or is ignorant of. And we're back at point 1 again.

"nothing that they said was actually false", maybe not, but it was darn right misleading, which many many people pointed out at the time.

Sorry Kosh, I disagre about your last point. Events have proved otherwise.
The francise system is based on 4 key critera: Facilities, Finance, Business and Marketing and Commercial.
Which areas would you say the Bulls strengths fit best on these 4 key criteria, marks out of 10 for each one.

The franchise system was brought in to allow the expansion of the game, speciffically to allow the Welsh team to queue jump.
This team is no longer in SL and so we have expanded the game of RL into Widnes.

The sysetem is flawed and for me, we need to find a better more transparent way of moving clubs into the top flight and the governing body
need to find some mechanism that encourages the clubs better manage their finances.

3 clubs into admin in 3 years in a league of 12/14 clubs just isn't good enough

Ok, we'll skip over point 1, because patently I do not have the applications to hand

Paraniod nonsense regarding the reasons behind the move to franchising, not at all, why else would the move have been made ?

Any clubs in financial strife is not good, but you seemed to wish to miss the point here.
Clubs outside SL do not go thruough some pseudo vetting process.

On the final point, I mentioned that 3 clubs from 12/14 going into admin was not good enough.
At what point should deeper checks into financial suitability become necessary.
I still labour the point that any club sould not be in financial strife when we are just over the starting line in a 3 year cycle, having been "checked" specifically on this criteria.

I think there's an issue as to whether they would continue to be profitable in a lower division if they were happy to stay there permanently. Would their fans continue to support them in sufficient numbers without at least the ambition of them becoming a SL club?

And if they were only delaying a genuine application until they reached the point where they could become a stable and profitable SL club, would they ever achieve that without financial backing?

Most definatly , the only way they could be placed in , we ALL told you how bad it was

Which ' Crusaders ' ? , 1 st one or the 2 nd one , so thats 4 SL clubs gone into financial problems inside 4 seasons

How about for the reasons actually put forward at the time?


I didn't miss the point. I merely highlighting your focus on SL when it's a wider problem.
We've discussed the limitations of the 'vetting process' at length.


The issue of checks into financial suitability is only part of the issue. The more important part is how many clubs in RL would actually pass a more stringent check.

It's important to remember that the franchise process is only there to identify the 14 [ibest[/i clubs. Not 14 [igood[/i clubs necessarily. Perhaps what we should be worried about is how much strife everyone else is in if Bradford were one of the 14 best.

Very very very good post. Absolutemon!

Kosh, dont misunderstand my drift here and I dont wish to kick a man when he is down, but the Bulls are clearly not one of the 14 strongest candidates as the current plight shows.
If the state of the game is that clubs wouldn't pass "a more stringent check", then we have all got a problem and as one or two have suggested, we may need to revert to a semi pro game and not the full time sport that we presently have.
FWIW, I really do hope that your team come out of the other side and that you can once again be a force within the sport that we all enjoy so much.

i think we should have a meeting organised every year in November.

In this meeting will be:

Ray French,
Stevo,
Gary Schofield,
Jonathan Edwards,
The pope,
Barrie McDermott,
Ronnie Laughton,
and Dido.

Chairing the meeting will be Claire Baldwin.

They all get to choose their 14 'best' teams from all RL clubs Championship 1 up and the following year it is these teams with the most votes that play in the elite division.

If any of these chosen teams go bust/enter admin, or run out of pies on a matchday they will be removed and placed on a 3 year ban from the elite division.

The league will be called - The A team.

and it will be sponsored by.....wait for it - You know them drumstick lollies - Them.

each team will only be allowed 2 'non-british' passport holding players and clubs can only spend 50% of their previous years revenue.

Sorted!

oh yeah!!! the meeting will be held at Frankie and Bennies Junc 32 Leeds (after normal serving hours to avoid disruption)

The current plight shows what they are now, not what they were when the licence was awarded. And, once again, they had one of the 14 best licence applications.


Clubs went bust in the semi-pro days - ironically enough, Bradford included. I'm not convinced that RL clubs are run any worse than pro clubs in a number of other sports TBH. There are fewer rich folk willing to prop them up though.

I remember the semi-pro days. The pro sport is a better product IMO. It would also hardly be a simple transition. For a start there's now a whole generation of pro RL players who have no other means of earning a living. What do we do - throw them all on the dole? Let the best and the brightest go to RU and be lost to the sport?


Erm - I'm not a Bulls fan.

I really don't wear rose-coloured glasses you know.