Indeed. And the major part of that set criteria is stadia! Strange how the loss of an old delapidated stadium suddenly becomes such a problem!

This would have put a different "spin on the RFL's announcement, agreed it was taken from the Sun, but still:


Hard-up Bulls in a Brad way


A DAY before the RFL announced they were taking over the lease of Odsal from Bradford Bulls, there was a buzz a big Super League club was in trouble.

Even to the point that a Championship club had been put on standby to replace them.

The Bulls, who were for 10 years the prototype and glamour club of Super League with average gates of 16,000, never recovered financially from the expensive exercise of signing Iestyn Harris from Cardiff Blues.

Leeds Rhinos had a clause in his contract that if he came back to Super League he had to join them.

The Bulls ended up paying compensation plus massive legal fees.

Bradford also had their fingers burnt with Australian signings Glen Hall and Matt Orford, who never lived up to their reputations.

Gates have dropped to around 11,000 on a good day and maintenance of such a huge stadium — that once held 102,000-plus in 1954 for the Challenge Cup final replay — has taken a huge toll.

Read the previous page of this thread, where someone has already quoted that latest piece of lazy fiction from Parker. Then read my reply, including my reference to the new lease seemingly having been signed in DECEMBER. Odd indeed that there should be a "buzz" earlier this week, several weeks AFTER the deal was done?

You of all people should know better than to listen to that pillock?

I drove passed there in my bus today, they haven't changed it's name to RFL odsel yet, though there was a board that said "thank you for supporting the Bradford Bulls" must have been a message to red hall

its all forgotten now the seasons all ready for starting its like a quick sweep under the carpet

Your chairman sold your stadium to developers.

Our chairman sold ours to the RFL.

Maybe if your chairman had not sold the stadium, the RFL could have taken over YOUR stadium too?

How would you have reacted then to charges that that action made franchising a joke and gave Wakey an unfair advantage at franchising time?

Don't blame the RFL because you had no interest in a stadium to sell.

I would be embarrassed

its starting to sink in now isn't it

what gets me is that they was negotiating for quite some time but still hadn't the balls to announce it until it was signed

Honestly, I wouldn't want it, if for no other reason than to avoid the scorn and derision that this bail-out has heaped upon your club; I'd prefer WTW to stand or fall on its own efforts, rather than become the RFL's charity case.

The governing body of the game now has a massive stake in one of the clubs that it will be required to make objective judgements about come licence time; can you honestly say that's a fair or credible position to be in?

You don't get it, do you?

1 - there is more noise about this coming from your fans than pretty well everyone else put together.

2 - virtually everyone - even most of you lot - sees this as a win for the Bulls. Far from pouring "scorn and derision" on us, the general reactions seem to coalesce between "good for them" and "unfair advantage".

3 - any "scorn and derision" seems largely reserved for the RFL, who are identified by most critical observers as being the villain of the piece.

4 - By contrast, many fans (I'm not one of them, although reactions of folk like you are not helping) are more than happy to pour scorn and derision on you guys. Not least for two insolvencies whilst in SL, both meaning an "unfair" jettisoning of debts. Yet the RFL went along both times - doubtless that too was a scandal and a disgrace? Getting rid of debts that way (and screwing your suppliers - remember last time when - IIRC - you took the two-man catering supplier for £11k, for example - and the taxpayer) gave you an advantage over other clubs that many would claim was manifestly unfair. I believe doing that it is unfair - and I've worked in the insolvency industry myself - but I'm not getting worked up about it. Because shìt happens, and you can always find some other guy whose grass you reckon is greener. Especially when you either lack or are not prepared to consider all the facts.

5 - I say again - your previous management was clearly poor. Selling stadiums to developers with no cast-iron alternative? And anyway, it must have been, because you all say it was. Bulls' management clearly is not (despite what some of our own lot might like to think). It can't be, to have cut a win-win deal like this.

Rather than blame the RFL for its actions, I suggest you need to look much closer to home for reasons for why things are as they are. And just get on and prove things on the park again.

TBH Adey, i think you are confusing or clouding the situation, by comparing one with the other.

If we take the Bulls deal first, there are no clear salient point, that dictate the need for this deal other than the Bulls are skint and they need some help, they are no financially better off, to the contrary they now must be financially worse off long term.
There is also no clear or discernable reason as to why the RFL would be any better off buying a lease for something they don't actually need.
Why both the Bulls and the RFL couldn't just come out and say, the Bulls are in trouble and we (the RFL) are here to help", oh hang on! and this is where the two deals could now be compared, "but we didn't help Wakefield!!!"
I think its fair to say, from that point of view its hardly a surprise that Wakefielf fans are more peeved than others and IMO rightly so.
Wakefields problems were largely of their own making, nobody moaned louder or longer than me on that note, so i kind of agree with some of what your saying, but it doesn't take away the point that the RFL are helping one club and not another.
The only reason you have offered is that we didn't own your ground, but neither do the Bulls, we are both tennented clubs, both with a large financial problem and help was only offered to one, and that is wrong.
I return to a point i made earlier, and it comes down to a perceived lack of honesty and fairplay many RL fans have with the RFL, so many of their dealings,,Contracts for star players at certain clubs, the lack of fair penalisation of big clubs and big name players that transgress the games laws, London, Paris, Catalan, Crusaders, and now the Bulls, they all leave a sour taste in the mouth and create more questions than answers.
No criticism of the Bulls at all, and certainly not of the fans, although some do protest too loudly, but so would I.
All the criticism is leveled rightly in my view at Red Hall, would you employ any of these guys i doubt it, and if the shareholders of the game were asked neither would many of them im sure.

But realistically who would have wanted to buy a stadium with 145 years of a lease to run which meant they could do nothing with it.

As I've said previously, I have no issue with what Bradford have done, fair play to them they have done a good deal. It's the ridiculous attempt by the RFL to dress it up as something other than a financial bailout that I have an issue with.

No matter what any Bradford fan says I cannot believe that this is anything more than them rescuing a member club from administration and assisting them financially like they did with Crusaders but yet not doing the same for other clubs.

Nobody in their right mind can possibly believe that the RFL have the finances available to be able to develop Odsal into any kind of National RL Stadium, so really all they have done is made themselves the landlords of a member club and as such put themselves in a position where it is almost impossible for them to deny Bradford a licence at any point in the future.

If the RFL and Bradford both came out and said "We needed to do this as without it Bradford would be in financial trouble" I'd respect them a lot more for it.
I wouldn't want any club to go into administration, and am upset that we had to go down that route. I don't think it looks good for the sport as a whole to see any member club in trouble. I'd be happy for the governing body to help out any club that found themself in difficulty, just don't tell me a pack of lies to try and disguise what you're doing.

KC, you jus beat me to it with a fairly similar post!!

What I would say is that Wakefield's problems were of their own making, are Bradford's not the same?? They didn't have to almost bankrupt themselves with the Iestyn Harris thing, just don't sign him - it's not like he was worth anything like what it ended up costing them is it??