www.code13rugbyleague.com/2012/0 ... dundancies www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/n ... ord_Bulls/ Mick Potter, St Hilaire, Duffy,Duckett,Paul Medley, office staff and THE KITMAN all made redundant !! Doesn't look good at all now!

www.code13rugbyleague.com/2012/0 ... dundancies www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/n ... ord_Bulls/ Mick Potter, St Hilaire, Duffy,Duckett,Paul Medley, office staff and THE KITMAN all made redundant !! Doesn't look good at all now!

Mr Potter this morning was quoted as remaining upbeat.

As you (theoretically) cannot transfer coaching staff, the administrators are obviously reducing the bills before selling off the assets: ie the players.

I feel for Sammut: two years of hellish administration.

Ouch, not looking good for them at all. Hope they can find a way out of it, I can't really see it though.

The players discover their fate tomorrow, and there are already rumours about where some of them are going. None involving Salford yet.

At the risk of causing hissy fits amongst the excitables on here, Bradford, as they stand today, are what a badly run club looks like.

Plus, it seems, rumours of Machiavellian plots by Chris Caisley involving Noble that the Bulls fans seem sure is happening. I'm so glad we're not in their shoes, and fingers crossed, never will be.

The truth of the matter is that the type of player we can afford from Bradford probably wouldn't add much to our existing squad anyway (apart from another monthly wage of course).

I really have doubts whether the British game at Superleague level is stong enough to survive this neverending recession with full-time players and coaches. Half full stadia, poor turnout for magic weekend and Exciles match and yet another club who have gone bust. How many top flight clubs is this now 4? The TV and sponsorship money is lagging way behind rugby union and the NRL and I can see the sky deal being even less next time or them pulling out completely. I think a big problem for clubs will be loss or reduction of sponsorship where many smaller companies sponsoring RL don't have the money like they did.

Unfortunately top flight football has got much stronger with Sky and moved up several levels where RL is where it is, a second rate spectator sport played mainly in a small geographical region of England.

If I'm honest I can only see Superleague getting weaker with more NRL and rugby union clubs taking our best talent such as Tomkins etc.

I know it may read as all 'doom and gloom' but if anyone can convince me otherwise I'm all ears!

I think Kopczak, would be a slight improvement to our front row not much but rather him over James, Boyle. That Manuokafoa, don't think he's worth the quota slot and I think their 2 young back rower are destined for bigger and things than SCR. Also not sure on his age but Elima would add something but would rather Dixon who were supposedly linked with?

While I don't wish to appear to be a vulture picking at the apparently dead corpse of the Bulls if full back is the position required to be filled we could certainly do worse than Elliot Kear,currently injured and according to the Bulls forum the injured players,and the most highly paid,will be the first to go.

That stated,I have the utmost faith in the coaching staff moulding whatever squad they assemble,into a very good,expansive and formidable Super League side.

I have massive sympathy for all those staff who have lost their employment,as I would have at any time of the year,but particularly at school holiday time.Most sympathy goes to Paul Medly who played at Leeds before going to Bradford where he has proven to be a splendid developer of young players.

With Phil Veivers spending time at the club,he too must have extreme emotions on the outcome as it develops.

Sad day for a number of genuine people;including the supporters.

I don't like to see any RL Club struggle and it saddens me to see what has happened at Bradford. A lot of my emotion, I'm ashamed to say, is relief that it's not us in the same position. Although there's little guarantee of that in the long run. It's a worry for all RL Clubs, most of which teeter on the brink themselves.

Hopefully the personnel who have lost their jobs will bounce back quickly.

How many clubs are already paying the max salary cap in Super League? So unless the RFL turn a blind eye to the cap there may be only a few clubs that these players could sign for anyway, and could these clubs afford to pay a fee on top of wages?
In effect a few clubs (Wigan, Warrington, Leeds, Catalan)could get some good players at Bargain basement rates but only if the RFL do suspend the cap, so the market to sell the assets may be very limited and small, not a good sign for Beadford trying to survive to the end of the week, let alone play on untill the end of the season.

If makes you wonder if the old semi-professional system of paying winning or losing money was the best option for a sport of our size? In the old format if your team were losing games and your gates were down you weren’t paying the players silly money for failure. Likewise if you were winning you would get more through the turnstiles to allow a club to pay winning money.

Furthermore if a club were struggling financially they could just sell a player or two to balance the books. The problem these days is a teams budget is fixed longer term with player contracts and if that club's crowds drop and/or sponsorship reduces it leaves them completely in the p**p because they don't have assets anymore.

I doubt this would improve things, and suspect it would make them worse. Clubs (including Bradford) went under during the semi-professional days, and if we went back to semi-professional, there'd be an exodus of top players to union. The problem isn't players being full time or part time, it's clubs being badly run. Most clubs run at a loss, but some (including our own) are able to prevent those losses getting out of hand. Some aren't.

In my opinion a club could be run well and still go under because they have no assets now. For instance assume the economy gets even worse, unemployment rises even more and a club like St Helens lost 4,000 off their average gates (800,000) and a few big sponsors (100,000). Saints will be at max cap with 1-3 year player contract commitments they wouldn't be able to meet without somebody putting their hand in their pocket. What if that person or people don't exist?

While I have sympathy for anyone made redundant and the fans of the club this situation is the fault of 2 bodies of people.
1. Bradford's board
2. The RFL

All of this has one central issue; SALARY CAP! The Bradford board is to blame for continually spending up to and beyond the Cap (let us not forget that they have been caught breaking the Salary Cap twice).

The RFL are to blame for allowing them to do this with the minimum punishment along with the other clubs who have been caught and are blatently flouting the current rules without being called to task. If the sanctions for breaking the Cap had been greater, a la Melbourne Storm for example, then there would have been less temptation for Bradford to break it. The fact that the RFL allowed them to do it and win SL titles in the process and allowed other clubs to do it so that Bradford felt pressure to keep pace led to this situation arising.

Salford are continually criticised by fans both on here and at matches for not "breaking the bank" to keep players or sign more high profile players. I have it on good authority however, that we deliberately do not spend anywhere near the Salary Cap so as to avoid this kind of predicament. Now some will say (like the Bulls fan who I had a frank discussion with at our recent home game) "how many trophies have you won?" Perhaps so, but at least we still have a club to support and we can say with pride that what we do achieve we have done so without breaking the rules!

I hope a solution can be found as I don't want to see any club go out of business. However, this should serve as a warning to the powers that be that they need to be more proactive and strict with the people running our clubs to ensure that the Salary Cap does what it was inteneded to do in the first place. Prevent clubs from spending beyond their means and deliver a fairer more balance competition where all clubs have a reasonable chance of survival.

Well said, Pete.

I feel for the fans, and you have a fair point with regards to poor management behind the scenes coupled with poor decision-making from the RFL.