I'm pleased Bradford are staying in SL and happy for their fans. I don't agree with the decision though. For me it doesn't send a strong enough message and 6 points isnt a strong enough punishment.

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.

Do you feel the Bulls should of been punished for going into Administration?

If so how?

I like the Bulls and I am glad they have survived as a club but something is wrong, what administrator doesnt start selling off the assets? I.e The players!

Care to point out where I suggested any such thing?


If you want a level playing field why are you demanding that Bradford should be treated differently to Wakefield?

And if any other club really thinks they'd be better off going through the same process I'd be surprised. But they're welcome to try.

Bradford's probation lasts for one season. By the time it's up for renewal we will most likely be operating a different system. The RFL have basically put SL into a holding pattern until the review reports back.

Neither Bradford nor Wakefield did anything at all. Their respective [iadministrators[/i took such actions as they saw fit - not the clubs or the new owners. So what happened in the two different administrations is irrelevant. Wakey got a lower points deduction because their new owner repaid more debt than the Bulls new owner BTW.

Now if you have questions about why Guilfoyle took the actions he did (or didn't) then you're not alone. But it has precisely nothing to do with any sanctions applied against the club as the club had no say in what happened. Neither did the new owner.

The Bulls have been punished according to the rules currently in place. Demanding punishment that goes beyond the rules isn't really all that useful. Rather than blaming the RFL for simply doing their job perhaps your ire should be directed at the other SL clubs who all voted for the rules as they stand.

Yes there were and they've been followed. Whether or not people feel that they're adequate is a different conversation.


No they haven't. And no they won't.


It's no surprise that people who make fools of themselves because they don't actually know what's going on but have a rant anyway try to deflect attention in this way.

How can you say they haven't made it up as they've gone along? Or that rules have been followed. They've propped up Bradford while a buyer has been found. Is this in the guidelines? Rule book? They didn't do that for Wakefield.
Anybody that enters administration should be removed from SL at the end of that season and a replacement brought in. If proper rules had been in place then a mini round of licensing could have taken place in time for a club to prepare for SL 2013.
While it won't suit Rovers to enter administration, Salford are looking down this particular barrel.
Be interesting to see how the RFL treat the next team to enter enter administration, as the RFL won't own their ground I'm sure.

My big issue isn't that Bradford (or Wakefield before them) went into administration, it's that they didn't come out of it. Transferring a licence to a newco makes a mockery of several supposed central tenets of licensing. There is clearly no minimum standard.
While no rules have been broken, this is because they deliberately avoided having rules and ran the system in an ad hoc manner, inevitably provoking suspicion. The purported principles of the system have clearly been abandoned.

The rules allow a great deal of latitude. Nothing that's been done has been against the rules as they stand now and nothing has been 'made up'.

The Bulls situation was significantly different to Wakefield's in a few important respects. For a start, the Bulls went bust mid season and simply allowing them to cease operating would have thrown the season into chaos. For seconds, the administrator for Wakey at no point threatened to liquidate the club. Guilfoyle did this on more than one occasion. And finally, the Bulls administration dragged on much longer than the Wakey one.

There are also some fairly strong rumours of shenanigans going on in the background that the RFL quite rightly worked to oppose.


I don't disagree but it's worth mentioning that the rules covering administration are voted on by the clubs and they were significantly weakened a few months before the last round of licensing - Wakey benefited from this as under the prior rules they would not have been allowed to apply for a licence. I'm cynical enough to think that the clubs were happy for the rules to be relaxed as any number are in financial strife.


I'm as cynical about consistency as the next man, but you can't penalise a club beyond what the rules allow [inow[/i just because you suspect that they might be applied differently in the future.

IMO there was no way out of the Bulls mess that didn't have significant problems attached. And that's without the games that are rumoured to have been played in the background. The one year probationary licence is [iprobably[/i the best of a bad lot given that in that time the review will report and we'll likely have a different mechanism for entry into SL before their licence is reviewed.

That's not [ientirely[/i true. There is a minimum standard - it's just a lot lower than we all thought. And there are rules - just very lax rules. And I'm not sure how much appetite there is among the clubs for stricter rules given how happy they were to vote for them to be relaxed last time around.

All far from satisfactory and we can only hope that when the review reports there will be some changes.

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.