Your point would hold water, if clubs hadn't been going into adminstration prior to the advent of franchising.

The only fortunate element to Bradford going into administration, is they have had a reasonable amount of time to prepare. The talk of liquidation is surely a scare tactic only?

Completley disagree. This is not proof at all of franchising not working. So 3 clubs have suffered - how do you know that without franchising, the global recession would not have hit even more clubs? With no minimum standards we may have had half the league spending beyond their means to compete on the field.

As it is, we've got most clubs in new or improved/improving stadia and most clubs well run and properly financed. That's quite an achievement in the current financial world.

All the Bradford situation is proof of - is that whatever systems you have in place (franchising, P&R, salary caps etc), if you have people running a business who make massive mistakes then its not going to end well.

bradford's issues were longterm mis-management,

I can't imagine that corporate thing at the end of the ground was a clever idea either, doesn't seem to be a cash cow.

Correct. I think I read somewhere that they paid millions in cash for that, instead of a properly structured finance package like normal businesses use.

Just a quick selfish question seeing as we were are due to host Bradford on the 29th July. When they could be liquidated by then.

Do people get a refund on season tickets for a game that they would no longer see? What happens about the lost revenue from away fans, people who buy game by game tickets who wont have a game to go to and also food and drinks sales losses?

For some clubs, could this cause problems as they would have budgeted for this game especially those teams who are tight for money?

Makes me wonder if bradford go bust with crowds of between 6 & 12 k how on earth do London Broncos survive on 2-3k crowds will they be next

I'd be very surprised if they are liquidated within 10 days.

They're just trying to smoke out potential buyers. The other thing is that as far as I can tell the only creditors are the players and the taxman. So the taxman is the one banging the door down for payment.

They don't own the ground so the only assets they have are the players. So Bateman will definitely go to the highest bidder and quickly, to give the taxman a payment to keep him happy for a limited period.

I also don't think this reflects on the licensing process - if anything it shows why it's needed.

The elephant in the room is that there are too many clubs together in a small area - from a pure business perspective they should merge with Halifax but obviously it's not as simple as that.

They have a rich benefactor who is covering the losses - they'd have gone under a long time ago if it wasn't for David Hughes.

All this talk about the franchise system not working is untrue you just need to look at Football a sport which receives a lot more money and exposure than ours. Rangers, Portsmouth etc. In the current financial climate there are going to be clubs which unfortunately will be in danger of not producing enough profit to be financially viable for the long term. Salford are also in a bad financial position. The Franchising system needs to be in place to try and expand the game because having too many teams around the same location (unless you have a sugar daddy) can not generate big enough crowds to be sustainable. The RFL need to take the risks to promote the game ive heard they are promoting teams from areas such as Coventry and Bristol but they need to start off small and build up and until that happens IF it happens i can see a good few more teams that suffer the consequences of the tough financial period unfortunately.

Because Bradford fans pay about a fiver for a season ticket.

Exactly, 10K paying a £5 a pop is about the same as £2700 odd paying £18. It's a combination of bad management, not replacing players like for like that caused Bradford to go from champions to bust in 6 years.

Say what you like about London but no one can accuse them or trying to buy a team to compete for top honours.

Bradfords biggest problem and the one that sets them apart from all other SL club failures is that it's the taxman that's after them, and unlike Rangers he's obviously not prepared to accept a few pence in the pound as an answer.

If you were looking at buying a SL Club, would you look to buy Bradford, pay off their tax debt and then fund what's there, or would you let them go bump, buy it in name only and start again with a big pot to spend on the clubs future ?

Does this mean they'll still be playing all their remianing games ? Excuse my ignorance, no wages means no players equals no game , no ?

I wouldn't be suprised if the Bradford Board Of Directors weren't invested for fraud. How they can ask for £500,000 in donations from their fans and the fans of RL to save their club, then announce they have further debts of around the same amount is astonishing. If I'd have donated, and I didn't as I couldn't care less if they fold or not, I'd feel like i'd been led up the garden path.

Will the players not be free agents in 10 days. If so can see them holding out for larger wages if no transfer fee has to be paid.

May be that's why the ground was bought by the RFL so it can be protected .