Given that a top 12 finish this year is worth a minimum of 1 million a year more in 2015 than those who get relegated, are the RFL going to put in place any contingency plans for teams that go "pop" in the off season of 2014-2015 safe in the knowledge they will be far better funded than the Championship clubs that make the middle 8 in 2015?

Borrow to buggery to stay up knowing that the extra cash you get the following year will ensure you stay up for the foreseeable future!

In case you are wondering, this is most assuredly directed towards the ICONIC club who it seems are in a constant state of flux, but not required to cut their cloth accordingly!

If it was my club in that situation I hope they would do so!

The question is who in their right mind would lend them a substantial amount under the circumstances ?

Another Gutterfax thread having a go at Bradford. I wonder how many posts we are from a mention of Union? Surely its not long before we get a back of fag-packet calculation with figures he has plucked out of his ? Do we get the full house and get a twisty turny use of stats that gets his predictions ONLY 25% out if we allow his twisty turny twisting and turning (or as other people describe it, completely wrong) as well as some bragging about how much he earns and who sends him text messages?

Im sure we can get through all of those in 3 pages at most.

Really don't understand why it is the RFL's job to secure funding for "failing clubs". They made a rod for their own back by helping Bradford so much and now every club in trouble will go to the RFL with their begging bowl.

If clubs aren't good enough to compete on their own terms in SL, they should face the consequences of relegation or if they overspend this season by cutting their cloth in the following season.

I was lead to believe that there is a premier league style parachute payment for the two relegated clubs this season, this should help the clubs that do go down, just as long they don't over reach this season.

The RFL should be an independent body, not poking their noses into clubs bad business and the clubs should also realise this before they overspend and then go into administration and asking for the RFL's help with finances.

Given the size of the parachute payments there's no point in London doing that.

They'll be financially better off taking relegation. They'll have loads more cash than the other championship clubs (Fax are in trouble over 65K rent arrears to the council FFS) so will stay full time. Then it's a case of slogging it out when the league splits to finish in the top four of the middle group.

That's the time you want to be mortgaging the club against future results!

I think the biggest mistake Halifax made in their relegation year was actually trying to get their finances in order and taking relegation. I feel if they had done what other clubs have done and swept it under the carpet then yes, they probably would have gone belly up at some point, but theres also a very good chance that they could still be in SL.

To answer the op.
Now, would be a good time for bringing in some clear and defined rules for clubs going "pop".
However, the one area that is almost impossible to measure and then to deal with, is the directors loan situation and/or sugar daddies, both of which are critical to an increasing number of clubs.
In an ideal world, all clubs would have income from trading, which exceeded expenditure but, this isn't going to happen any time soon.
The Huddersfield's and Salford's of this world are very comfortable with the annual "gifts" from their owners and could not survive without their cash injections and clearly, we want to encourage more investors into the game.
Therefore, the only way we can "punish" clubs is, if they go into administration and surely it isn't too difficult to set out a points deduction for this type of indescression.
If this is 10 or 12 points, it should be sufficient deterrent to prevent anyone taking "the easy option". Although, with the new league structure, it could be easier for club's to regroup and fight their way back to the top flight ?

I suspect the folk demanding a fixed penalty for administration are not involved in the criminal justice system?

Because, if they were, I doubt they would think it made sense to have a fixed penalty for every offence, regardless of circumstances, mitigating factors, premeditated or not, underlying intent, previous record, co-operation with the authorities, early guilty plea, state of mind...whatever? Indeed, this is why judges have sentencing guidelines to follow, which effectively graduate the punishment according to the circumstances and nature of the specific situation.

Another question for those who demand a fixed penalty for administration: Administration is a remedy for insolvency. A CVA is another remedy for insolvency. What fixed penalty should be applied for a club entering into a CVA?

I ask because I understand that is how Salford resolved their situation. And, as an example, what Wakey resorted to a few years before they went insolvent again, the second time into administration. I believe Salford's CVA provides for all the creditors being paid, over a period? And therefore no penalty. I recall that in Wakey's, case only a modest part of the creditors outstandings were paid? I clearly remember the caterer, IIRC a two-man business or something, losing £11k? Something anyone arguing for higher penalties for repeat offences might want to consider?

Now, here is the really interesting bit. If insolvent club A was to enter into a CVA to resolve its situation, and agreed to pay off its creditors over a period, and insolvent club B instead entered administration to resolve its situation, and the buyers of the club assets agree to pay off the creditors over a period, what is the difference? The result for the creditors and the game is exactly the same.

And, if the penalty for administration is fixed - or little different - regardless of whether or not you attempt to pay off none, some or all of the creditors, what incentive is there for ANYONE to consider paying off ANY of the creditors? Those who say "6 points if you pay off no-one, 4 pts if you pay off some" - if i was buying a business out of administration, in those circumstances i would take the extra 2 pts, keep the money for paying creditors in my pocket, and use that to buy a much better team to more than get me the 2 points back. Its a bit like saying, for example, the penalty for armed robbery is x years, and the penalty for murder is the same x years. In that situation, there is no deterrent to the robber using his gun, and no benefit to him in not using it.

I'm flagging these points up as serious questions for discussion.

FWIW, I think trying to allow for too many bespoke circumstances would not work. It would rightly be seen as allowing fat too much scope for subjective assessment, and far too many reasons for that subjective assessment to be challenged.

I do not think a fixed penalty is at all appropriate.

I I HAD to come up with SOMETHING that might work as a least-bad compromise, that was seen to be objective it would probably be something like: "penalty for entering any form of insolvency - x points. Deduction for formal agreement for paying off creditors within a realistic period - sliding scale, maybe reflecting whether HMRC and/or small local creditors are paid, from 0% to 100% of the penalty.

I'd probably also have the base penalty not a fixed number of points anyway, but another sliding scale to reflect the total value of third-party creditors at the date of insolvency. But you straight away start getting into problems even then - for example, do you include employee claims if all are TUPEd across and all their existing entitlements are assumed by the buyer?

There is a certain type of person who thinks penance must be paid. They find the idea of punishment attractive because it feeds in to their notion that spending money is bad, and that spending more money is worse. That’s why we see people supporting austerity even though it has been proven in pretty much every example to slow recovery. Though they phrase that as ‘cutting your cloth accordingly’ with no knowledge or thought of what ‘accordingly’ is other than being 100% sure that Bradford need to cut their playing squad FACT, that would solve all their problems FACT, if only Bradford were for a year everything would be ok FACT. We need to remember though, that this isn’t about seeking an advantage of for their club, That’s just a necessary by-product of whatever punishment is handed out.

People need to see a punishment, it doesn’t matter if it achieves nothing, it doesn’t even matter if it is counter-productive, it doesn’t matter if those responsible are punished as long as someone somewhere is punished for something at some time.

We have even got to the stage where, by some crazy reasoning, people are demanding the new owners of Bradford are punished for debts they didn’t run up, because the guy who did run them up lost out. They are asking, desperately arguing, we are seeing letters from supporters trusts, people are genuinely angry and feel hard done to, because the man who ran up debts at Bradford lost his money, and those trying to rectify the situation haven’t yet been punished.

They honestly think the only thing that would stop Bradfords new owners doing what the old owners did, is the knowledge that the next owners will be punished, and the bigger the threat on Bradfords next owners, the more circumspect Bradfords current owners will be. Because as we all know, the main consideration for those at Bradford isn’t their money or their reputation, but that Bradford don’t get a points deduction after they have gone.

That all ok then Smokey, we just carry on regardless and try not to learn from a bad situation (very close in time to the last bad situation) and just roll on as though nothing happened.
If you stand under a leaking pipe and don't move, you deserve to get wet

How does punishing new owners for the sins of the old cause anyone to learn from a bad situation?

Would you buy a used car from a garage, if you were told that the previous owner defaulted on the HP so to get the car you had to pay off some or all of that HP? I bet the lesson THAT taught you would not be "don't go bust myself", but rather "fekk this for a lark I'll go elsewhere"?

Need to look at this issue objectively.