I see the Cougars fans are already trolling their board like fev fans did ours.

When the RFL issued warnings after the awarding of the last set of franchises regarding administration, this was thought to be aimed at clubs like us and Cas, however, now that one of the big boys is in trouble, do these warnings still apply.
If their SL franchise was revoked, or even under threat of being revoked, this would seriously damage their potential worth.

Well I don't think they have much chance of raising half a million from public donations by next week have they?
Seems they will have to follow our route and go into administration and surely have their points deducted.
For the genuine fans -empathy-we've been there! For the smug ones who posted on here in our troubled times -enjoy YOUR situation now as we had to!
All that said, we cannot complain too much in Wakefield, the RFL could have kicked us out of SL prior to the last application. We, to put it kindly, deceived them into believing improvements would be made regarding the ground and dragged our feet over the issue for many years until recently.
I suppose the difference between us and Bradford is that everyone knew we had financial difficulties for many years having to sell players to keep afloat but Bradford have carried on recklessly spending money as though they had no problem. This hasn't happened overnight and yet this season they have a wage bill of two and a half million pounds! Nice to see one of the big clubs being run in such an efficient professional way.
I won't donate a penny. They can sink and start again as we had to.
Wander how many more of the 'big clubs' are in such a mess?

As someone said earlier, it does seem like they never stopped believing they were a Grand Final club, when they haven't been a threat of that for years. It's not a failing of the franchise system or the salary cap. It's just spending money they didn't have.

There is no doubt that they have lived beyond their means, but how did they pass the strict financial checks and audit for the current franchise period ?

i can see a rule change coming (a la crusaders) to keep A bradford team in SL.

whether that be the current bulls or a new club (bulls B)

This was a point I was discussing with a couple of fellow fans last night.

I'm not entirely sure what price they sold their "10,000 pledge" tickets for but thought it was around the £80 mark.

10,000 * £80 = £800,000

Even at £120 tickets would still be a bargain, less than a tenner per game. Admittedly you wouldn't sell as many but say you could sell 2/3rds at the higher price, you have

6,500 * £120 = £780,000

Almost the same amount but then you would get people who come along when they feel like it, say 1,000 per game (ie the other 3,500 ST holders coming along to approx 1/3rd of the games)

1,000 * £20 *13 games = £260,000

This money would also come in throughout the season as opposed to now where they had a big advance of money beforehand but the only income they are now receiving on gates is probably away fans, not great from a cashflow perspective is it??


In my opinion they did the reduced fee season tickets to help them tick another box on the franchise application (10,000 season ticket holders looks really good doesn't it) without thinking through the long term implications.



I fully sympathise with their genuine fans but at the end of the day their current business plan is clearly not sustainable (even with a massive cash injection) and any rescue is just delaying the inevitable.

I doubt very much the adjudgicators went beyond the first page of the Bull's application.

It makes Bradfords decision to vote for the Stobart deal rather than guarenteed cash even more baffling. Guess it had something to do with that RFL deal again.

I do sympathise with the genuine Bulls fans - we've all been there. I think anyone who is trying to bail them out of their current predicament is misgided. This has been coming for a long time - ever since they lost their Iestyn Harris case against Leeds. I've heard they have had to shell out c£1.5m in compensation and as most RL clubs will lose around £0.5m per year the numbers arent going to stack up. Better off taking the pain in the short term losing the high earning players and wiping out the debt, then restarting as we have had to do. It's a painful process but at least the club will be leaner and fitter in the long term.

If any set of fans have a right to feel a sense on injustice and bad feeling it’s Keighley. The way Chris Caisley tried to pull the SL draw bridge up in Keighley’s faces was disgusting. Although shoving in the Bulls fans faces isn’t really on. At least Caisley will lose out as he owns 30% of shares on the Bulls, who would want to bail out a slime ball like that?

Can't disagree with any of that.

We should help them out by taking Burgess and Elima off their wage bill.

Agreed.

If they were removed from the Super League for going into Administration half way through the season then what would happen regarding games still to be played? Would the team automatically get 2 points or would ALL the points relating to the Bulls be removed from the start of the season?