Just for a minute I thought i'd pressed the Bulls forum by mistake !
There are 2 or 3 issues which still remain puzzling regarding the Bulls admin and re-forming

1, Why were the players not sold, whien it is usually the administrators duty to raise as much cash as possible to pay of the creditors, either in part or in full.

2, What exactly is the situation concerning advence monies and withheld monies from Sky and why would a sponsor be allowed to withhold any cash.

3, Finally, for the Bulls fans who actually think their club has been hard done by. Even with the RFL taking on the lease and this causing a subsequent problem with their security with the bank, there is no way in this world that the Bulls would have survived without the substantial help from the RFL and with this in mind, surely the RFL should be doing everything possible to ensure the survival of Salford along with any other club that falls into difficulty !

I meant if the RFL do what they did with Bradford and buy the lease to Salfords stadium... pay the wages for the rest of the season in advanced sky money and allow any debts to build up it may prove harder for Salford to find a buyer because a new owner would then need to pump more money into the club in the long run.

The above would be unlikely because we arent mid season anyway. Each situation is different.

The RFL helping Bradford was the only way for us to survive at the time but what im saying is in my opinion the old board should have made everyone aware of Bradfords debts sooner and then we wouldnt have been in the position where the RFL had to / wanted to buy the lease at Odsal and where SKY money had to be advanced because this has made things harder for our new owner.

I think the old board at Bradford delayed and delayed until we ended up in a mess.

I do think the RFL is partly to blame for every club that has got into financial difficulty since the licenses have been awarded. For the finances at Bradford not to have been noted when licenses were granted is unlikely. Very few clubs have broken even over the last few years & that needs to be looked at. Unfortunately the game is being run on quick sand at the moment and there's many clubs going through financial difficulties.

I know other forums suggest the SKY money from Bradford may have been put to better use going into some kind of `emergency fund` for clubs that are struggling. I hope that Salford get through the problem they have and that the fans there pull together and try and raise money ( but ensure it's safe and doesnt get swallowed up ) I know i will pledge to help them. I wouldnt want any club to get into that position.

If they hadn't been propped up with half a million quid of donations, they might have gone sooner.

For the record the RFL did not "Buy" the lease for Odsal, they took it in part payment for a £1.25m loan that still didn't manage to keep the club afloat (£700k of that loan related to outstanding monies from a previous loan which is effectively what the RFL valued the lease at) they then advanced the Bulls a further £550k to help them last them through closed season Dec 2011-Jan 2012, the £500k raised by fans cleared the directors liabilities and went nowhere to pay of any of the other debts, so all the Bulls fans did was help the numpties that put them in the mess. Without a shadow of doubt players should have been sold and the administrator was not independent and was clearly having his strings pulled, a 6 point deductions was more than fair as the club did not deserve their league position, as they were fielding a team they could not afford, which is what was causing the debt to increase weak in weak out

There is some coffee on the stove, may I suggest you wake up and smell it

In short bulls got help from rfl and other resources and so should salford.

I agree.. but maybe in a different way. Something should be set up to help clubs going into financial difficulties because its happening too often.

Yes i know, but when asked to help your club or they'll go bust it's hard not to. In hindsight maybe it would have been better for the money to go into the kitty for a possible new owner.

I think when a club's in financial difficulty it's hard not to help regardless of how you see the situation. Just like i will with Salford.

Perhaps if the Bulls withheld Sky money had been ring fenced for something more useful than the other clubs lining their own pockets the RFL could offer more support to Salford. Apparently all clubs have been informed that the RFL is unable to advance SL payments in 2013.

Would have made more sense wouldn't it? I don't see the harm advancing money already due in the short term personally. Aslong as it's only done for a short time whilst for example a new buyer is preparing to take over.

But most wakey fans knew what was going to happen and posted on here at the time, guess bulls fans were blinkered

Oh apologies, the Bulls fans and the whole of the RL press must have missed the prediction of an EGM to oust the current board which effectively ended any possible investment after the pledge.

What that pledge DID do was bring together the whole club, from fans to players to coaches and officials. Personally I'm proud of how the whole club pulled together and we saw some of best rugby played in a long time. If we'd all sat back and said 'stuff the club, it's the directors problem' then none of last season would have happened.

Omar Khan bought the club because he saw that the Bradford community cared about the Bulls. Would he have been quite so keen to take us on without seeing such efforts from the fans? I doubt it.

The Wakefield fans need to move on, despite their disappointment that the whole club wasn't dismantled and players sold off for peanuts.

It's a good job they didn't have that attitude when the Bulls first went to them with the begging bowl; if I recall correctly, the Odsal lease situation was precipitated by the RFL having loaned the Bulls a massive chunk of cash, of which they failed to pay back a penny piece? As financialtimes has explained, the RFL took action to resolve that situation and the dominoes began to topple.

Personally, I don't think that the governing body should be required to prop up failing businesses; they should however properly audit the finances of each club when they carry out the licensing process, to ensure that they're not handing a 3 year licence to a club that is built on sand.

As for moaning about what was done with the 'withheld' cash - I hardly think the Bulls are in a position to complain about that, given the lengths that the RFL and to varying degrees, the other SL Chairmen went to to keep them afloat.

That's unfair and more than a little bitter; I don't think anyone wanted the Bulls to fail - rather, people were calling for parity in terms of how clubs are treated when in difficulty. I guess WTW fans had a more robust view than most, given that the season before the Bulls fiasco, our own club had been in a similar pickle and was pretty much hung out to dry.

Perhaps unfair on some but there was some degree of revelling in our plight and a fair percentage came from this direction. I'm sure it wasn't the case from all Wakefield supporters but it was still evident.

I dont think that people were revelling in your plight at all.
Many of the comments on here were made due to the perceived preferential treatment thet the Bulls received, some of which was only found out after the brown stuff hit the fan. ie the loan that was given 2 seasons ago and then the utter nonesense of "iconic stadium", which many thought was the RFL trying to hoodwink the sport, which as we now know was a smokescreen for other issues.
No sportsfan wishes to see the game in such turmoil and we have certainly endured enough to last a lifetime but, neither do we want to be fed information with such a slant that you fall over whilst trying to glean the facts.
In hindsight, a little more honesty and transparency from all parties would have helped both your plight and your standing within the game.