It was always a stupid plan.
Bradford were paying a "peppercorn" rent on Odsal and then moved to a "commercial" rent (after the RFL bought the lease).
Apart form giving them circa £700k to fritter away, the long term effects, for a club that couldn't trade profitably, were always going to be harder than they had been.
As I said, it was wrong at the time and just gets worse and worse.
The RFL need to cut their losses here and if their really is still an appetite for rugby league in Bradford, which I think there is, Bradford will eventually be a force again, even if it takes some time.
Equally, there are plenty of politics at play here and they appear to be trying to force the RFL's hand (by walking away from the rental agreement), something that the RFL cannot allow them to do.

With everything that has gone on, I can't understand why you still think that is accurate? That was the popular opinion at the time, but after 8 years, looking at the results, the opposite is correct. Unless when you used the word "benefit", you were using its other meaning - massive damage to the Bulls, the RFL and the game as a whole?

The RFL didn't buy the lease to help the Bulls, they did it to save themselves. The RFL gave the Bulls a large unsecured loan 3months previously and basically exchanged it for the only asset the Bulls had left.

Hood should never have asked for the loan. And the RFL should never have agreed to it. That decision tied Bradford & the RFL together, caused reputational damage, issues with governance, likely affected Sport England payout to the RFL as governance and avoiding conflict of interests are big for public bodies.

If the Bulls had gone into administration earlier, they would have had about £1.2m debt and a £1.5m asset. Much more saleable. Instead, they and the RFL had their devils compact and the bulls went bust one year later with no asset and about £2.4m debt.

There was a plan?

I think Rimmer is right in needing a solution for the benefit of the rugby league community as a whole, because of course long-time Bradford fan, and now owner, Nigel Wood, helped saddle the sport with the millstone in order to help "his" club.

Now that the sport is saddled with it, it is only right that the sport does what it can to get rid of the millstone. If that benefits the Bulls, I've no issue. They are a bona fide top flight club.

But there is no point in moaning about what was done in the past. The sport needs to get rid of the burden in a way that is best for the sport, and perhaps even for the Bulls.

It's just a disgrace how it was done (and perhaps a shame that Nigel Wood wasn't a dyed in the wool Wakefield fan).

Wasn’t Neil Tunnicliffe a supposed Trinity fan? Did he do us any favours? Certainly not on that scale, we can’t even get the old boys network to go in our favour

There is no bout that the loan of £700K was for Bradford's benefit or, was it forced upon them ?
As you say, there was little choice for the RFL to swap the debt on the loan for the lease, as Bradford had nothing else to offer.
Yes, this was a slightly toxic arrangement and as I said, it was detrimental in the long term compared to the "peppercorn" rent that an already insolvent business was paying.
However, where should we put the blame.
Was it a desperate governing body, not wanting to see a fallen star disappear or was it Bradford that convinced the RFL that the plan would work.
Either way, the RFL still look like a bunch of incompetents and Bradford, for all of their great years, are just done, which is terribly sad for the game and it appears that "we" are all going to pick up the tab with half of the load already having been written off.
Although a new build on the Richard Dunn site sounds great, it would appear that nobody is prepared to face the fact that there is no bloody money and whilst it seems that Bradford are desperate to avoid playing at Valley Parade, as an outsider looking in, this looks a way better option than playing out of Dewsbury or hoping for a miracle.

Nigel wood (now part owner of Bradford and long term Bradford fan) and general joke of humanity and rugby league in respect of he’s made a living of running the league in to the ground and more recently represented us internationally (a further and even bigger joke) is utterly ing his self

How is this guy still making a living from our sport?

You can’t help but feel he some how did a deal on the Bradford ground with big nige can you ........

A lot of flak for Wood and rightly so but have we ever had anyone running the game who was even half way decent. Richard Lewis seemed ok in sort of career civil servant kind of way.

Anyone with an actual plan on how to take the game forward would be a start - Richard Lewis seemed to at least fit this criteria, although, I think he may have been at the helm at the start of the Bradford Bulls saga and it could be that some of the catastrophic decisions made, were during his stewardship.