The Bulls were the club to embrace the Super League, they remain in terms of club size one of the largest clubs in the league in a city much larger than the small town of Featherstone and carry one of the largest fan bases in club rugby of either code in this country, we would have made the play-offs but for the points deduction, (not the players fault we were in this mess). Let me tell you the Bradford fans have stuck by our team when we have had uncertainty all this year. Another thing Wakefield and London have been in admin are still in league, to me it seems like jealously from some fans about the Bulls successes they wanted us to suffer. I have had a terrible year whereby I have two redundancies and have stuck by my team throughout this process, luckily I managed to find a another job on a larger salary and my team are safe, but the league is much stronger with the Bulls, just speak with the bosses of Leeds, Warrington, Wigan and St Helens.

BTW it's worth remembering that the real villains in this fiasco are the ex Bradford board and shareholders who allowed the club to go bust in the first place. It's a shame that there's no way to penalise them. They should, at the very least, be banned from owning or running an RL club at any point in the future IMO.

It's a semantic argument admittedly, but if a club can survive its business been wound up and its debts been written off, then in terms of business and finance and the stuff they seemed so concerned about in framing the criteria then either -

1. It's like setting an exam pass mark at 0%, which I would argue does not constitute a minimum standard.

or

2. The licence is awarded to the club not the business, so any assessment of the business is irrelevant.

I agree about any sort of punitive action against Bradford being pointless for its own sake, but it does show licensing to be impotent. And while I'm glad for Bradford fans, I do feel a bit for the fans of Fev and Fax, who've seen their fears confirmed. Their only consolation being that it was so obvious, change is pretty much inevitable.

12month probation haha i'll put my life on bulls getting a new licence an that time .

The organisation that failed doesn't have a licence any more; the organisation with the [iprobationary[/i licence hasn't failed. It's entirely consistent with the stated aims. Where it falls down, of course, is that there has been no opportunity to test the business plan of the new owners against other applicants. And TBF that's less an inherent problem of licencing and more to do with a reluctance among the other clubs to vote for a reduction in the size of SL.

The [ibig[/i mistake was the removal of the explicit penalty for insolvency just before the last round of licencing. Had that been left in place then neither Wakey not Bradford would be in SL. Another sanction removed by a vote from the clubs, BTW...

I wouldn't, as there's a very good chance that there won't be licences beyond 2013.