The FA would act totally above board because of the level of following the overpaid dancing has.

By comparison, RL is a minority sport and the RFL has less interrogation from the press compared to the FA. Wood & Lewis are only bothered about trying to expand the game beyond its natural heartland faster than the sport needs to.

Give me a break!

Crusaders went into admin owing in excess of 2.2Million and the only debt carried forward was to the RFL(hello.....conflict of interest....hello)!
The owners who applied for administration did so to clear the debt so they themselves could buy the club back debt free (apart from the deal to pay the RFL). Not only did they make zero attempts to stay out of administration they actively sought it without any other avenues being explored.

Wakefield on the other hand staved off two winding up orders earlier in the year and did their best to avoid the third by agreeing a payment term with HMRC which was withdrawn because of the RFLs compliance in seeing Crusaders avoid their tax bill via administration. Doomed it may have been but at least the club tried to raise the money by hook or by crook after the RFL had refused to loan them the £350K that would have helped them avoid all the bad publicity the sport has suffered through Wakefields situation, by the way, more double standards from the RFL!

Finaly we have the old BoD applying for administration as a last resort to save the club and not as a mechanism to wipe off debts so they can buy it back for a song and be debt free.

Another BIG consideration that Wakefields debt is less than one third of the Crusaders debt.

Will any of this make a difference to the decision on how many points Trinity are deducted?

No!

The rfl are taking £175 thou a season out of there sky money over the next 4 seasons.

Which obviously guarantees their super league status no matter what.

They will have a charge on the racecourse Ground only.
The 2 people the RFL dealt with,Moss and Roberts,who took Crusaders in and out of administration,have tried to sell the football club for some time.
Some front men for Stephen Vaughan have made a recent attempt to buy the soccer club.Vaughan is the money launderer who took Widnes into administration.
rlUpdaterl

In what way is it a conflict of interest? I struggle to see any argument where by the RFL insisting a debt that would otherwise have been unpaid and subsequently lost when the previous company was liquidated was paid in full, was something that the RFL did in favour of Crusaders.

Which avenues would you have expected them to explore that you know they didnt? If going into administration allows them to build a stable and secure company and staying out of it allows them to simply stay out of it, running up more debts and going further away from stability and security then going into administration is the right thing to do. The same as it seems to be in Wakefields case.


Wakefield didnt have any security to put up against the loan. The RFL took out a charge on the racecourse ground as security. Thats just sensible, its not a double standard.

Would you loan Ted Richardson £350k with no security?

I think you are using a bit of artistic license to argue the Ted Richardson put the club into administration as an effort to save the club. He could have give it away, but no-one seemed to want the debt. It seems Mr Glover would rather start with the debts wiped out, than take them on.
The size of the debt which sunk crusaders has never ever been mentioned as part of the reasoning when deciding their points deduction. It would certainly be a double standard if The RFL decide that Wakefields level of debt is relevant, but never did so for the Crusaders.

Got to get em first before they can take them off us!

In view of the RFLs investment into the expansion process it's a conflict of interest to also be the judge and executioner regarding the number of points they are deducted.

The RFL being the governing body have an obligation to the HMRC to ensure that it's member clubs do all they can to stay out of Administration and not actively aid them to do the opposite. This is a clear conflict of interest between their responsibility to the HMRC which in turn protects all RFL member clubs and their attitude toward one member club, Crusaders, and therefore the expansion concept which is obviously sacrosanct.

With franchising decisions just months away the RFL have a conflict of interest in that they must protect their £700K investment by favouring Crusaders, not just this time round but next time round as well.




Point me in the direction of one single link, report or whatever that suggests Crusaders were doing anything to rid themselves of debt other than seeking Administration.



The loan was to aid cash flow and could easily have been secured against the SKY money due this season!

It's a shame, but I have to admit that as soon as Smokey comes along and does those split quote responses, I stop reading. Sorry Richard, I know you're not a pedant, I just wish the other guy could summarize his thoughts in a couple of paragraphs, like everyone else.

No worries mate, I hate them too but responded in kind.

Funny that - I do the same; far too self-indulgent and a bit overbearing - I think it's a VT thing.

Not if When they go bust again and mark my words they will

Who else could possibly fulfil that role? The RFL are the ruling body for the game, if they arent the ones making these decisions, who can do?


The RFL have no such obligation.

But this £700k investment simply wouldnt exist, it would already been lost had the RFL not taken such a hard line with them.

The RFL had two options, either A) right off £700k with no chance of it being paid back, or B) ask them to pay it back on more realistic terms. From the information in the public domain £700k would be paid back over 10 years, That is only £70k a year. Its not a huge amount.

And again, i ask the same question, What would you have liked them to have done? I see no reason to expect that the owners of Crusaders wasted many thousands of pounds going through administration if they could have avoided it.

And how would the club function for the rest of the season? It would be all well and good to loan Wakefield £350k for cash flow, but then they would be £350k down on income already this year and considering they were losing money who was going to pay it? Ted clearly didnt have the money to put in again so who covers the rest of the losses?

All that would have happened had the RFL advanced Wakefield £350k of this years Sky payment is that Wakefield would have gone bust a couple of months later and the RFL (and more importantly the new owners) would be £350k down.

Looks like it's fallen on deaf ears. Still, won't change owt, will it?