The T&A piece is actually a pretty fair report of what was actually said in answer to the some of the questions I listed above.

But of course we would be sceptical if it was other clubs involved. Obviously anything Hetherington does is guaranteed to be directed at sending Bulls into oblivion, whilst whatever Wire may say to the contrary they are clearly spending 300% of the salary cap. Despite all this, Red Hall still obviously hate us and will continue appoint cheating refs and especially vidrefs specifically to deprive us of the points. And Millwart will continue to be the antichrist incarnate whatever he may do.

What I have sought to do is to help the sceptics conclude that the RFL are total lying cheating incompetant barstewards, set on shafting their own club, in the knowledge of as many of the facts as possible as opposed to just hearsay and speculative gossip.

I'm not sure wether or not i comprehend you or wether you have just gone into 5 year old reaction mode, to what was i think a fair comment, (i'll assume it was the former and not the latter!!).
Sadly in the absence of facts, we are left with hearsay, speculation and gossip, something we also have though,is a governing body with a track record for making up rules to suit individual sets of circumstances, (such as this one?) and a gut reaction to not believe a word of it.
I'm sorry if that doesn't suit you on this occasion, but thats the fact of it, something which had there been any (fact's that is!!), maybe it would be a whole lot more believable.
As you were.

I despair.

I was actually agreeing with your point, that fans will choose to believe what they want of other clubs, and especially of the RFL, regardless.

By giving some (equally...?) outrageous (if a bit embellished...) examples of what many Bulls fans could think. regardless of even concrete facts to the contrary.

Maybe your irony detector needs re-calibrating?

Thanks, that's clearer.
I don't think I was being outrageous though.

Its one of those irregular verbs:

I relay absolute fact.
YOU are disingenuous.
HE/SHE/IT is being outrageous.

Thought you knew that?

OK, Having read what we were told, this is how I read it:

The current board at Odsal are not majority or even significant shareholders in Bradford Bulls Holdings LTD. Infact 93% of shares are held by individuals not involved in the day to day management of the club.

The Bulls current board were concerned that sopmebody could buy up shares quite quickly, in order to secure a big chunk of real estate in a decent position near the main access route into the city. The club would be homeless, and RL, the club and the city would suffer.

Now that the club dont own the lease, if somebody buys up the shares, and takes over, they dont gain control of Odsal as a peice of property, they get more liabilities, as the club is still maintaining it!!!

That in effect means that any takeover would be for rugby reasons rather than making a profit from developing the land minus a rugby ground, andf therefore it is massively less likely to happen.

If I am cynical (or hopeful) the "six figure sum" received by the club, linked to the rent now being payed means that effectively, the club will maintain the ground until the economy nationally takes an upturn. then the RFL will improve the facility and have it as a national stadium for RL. I imagine that the money recieved will be repayed several times over by Bradford Bulls over the years, and that the RFL will end up making a tidy sumk from it, which in turn could be used for the betterment of the sport.

Just an aside, but with this £1M, they are going to have to pay higher rental and upkeep on the ground, and to stop this all happening in the future, buy up a large number of shares?

Peter Hood is the chairman?

Do his significant amount of shares not count?

Peter Hood owns significantly more than 7% of the shares??

A lease that long is tantamount to freehold, as you know. Hood implied at the forum that there were no constraints in the lease to prevent development - although I always assumed there must be some constraint. The clu b DOES have a liability, running off un

And I have been saying what Isaac1 summarised for a week now! I tried to not labour the point (until last night, anyway) of the other shareholders potentially selling out because several of them are getting on a bit and they (or successors...) might find they have a good use for any windfall money a predator might offer them, and one at least is now quite old and frail. It seemed a tad too personal and unfair to suich past servants of the club to suggest that something that may currently be far from in their minds (who knows?) might change - basically because of them getting old or worse.

The club DOES have a liability - running off to 2019 - to repay monies to the council if the club does not play at least 90% of its home games at Odsal.

Peter Hood is the chairman.

Peter Hood owns around 7% of the shares.

Chris Caisley (former chairman, and critic of the current baord as well as players' agent for the Burgesses and others) is the largest single shareholder, at around 26%.

From memory, Colin Tordoff (Club President but not a director) is next largest, at under 20%. I recall Jack Bates and Roland Agar (retired directors) hold somewhere in the teens too, and Steven Coulby (another retired director) somewhat less.

Complete speculation here (and not noticed if the point has been made) but could it be anything to do with Steve Parkins apparent interest last year?

A lease that long is only in effect freehold, the problem lies in the ability to change the lands use, and obtaining planning for it, baring in mind at some point it may all have to be pulled down.

The figure of £1m is speculative. Hood would neither confirm nor deny any figure last night, in response to my question:

"It has been reported that the Bulls received a ”seven figure sum” for assigning the long lease to the RFL. Assuming that two of those seven figures are not the pence...has this all been paid or will it be paid in stages?"

The Bulls paid a pepeprcorn to the council as the RFL now will. As has been said, for all practical purposes in our lifetimes, the Bulls held a freeehold. the Bulls now have to pay what we are told is a commercial rent to the RFL.

Hood stated categorically last night that Bulls pay the upkeep. Doubtless this will reflect in the rent, as it would in any other "short" lease.

Maybe at some stage the club will be in a position to buy back the shares of the retired etc directors, for some value. This action by the RFL takes any pressure off for doing that. Had the deal not been done, I doubt the Bulls could have considered that option. This action implicitly takes away most, if not all, of the value in those shares anyway, so maybe any future buyback will be at a far far more modest cost than might have been necessary.

Adeybull

Ive just sent you a pm.