Very very very good post. Absolutemon!

Kosh, dont misunderstand my drift here and I dont wish to kick a man when he is down, but the Bulls are clearly not one of the 14 strongest candidates as the current plight shows.

If the state of the game is that clubs wouldn't pass "a more stringent check", then we have all got a problem and as one or two have suggested, we may need to revert to a semi pro game and not the full time sport that we presently have.

FWIW, I really do hope that your team come out of the other side and that you can once again be a force within the sport that we all enjoy so much.

i think we should have a meeting organised every year in November.



In this meeting will be:



Ray French,

Stevo,

Gary Schofield,

Jonathan Edwards,

The pope,

Barrie McDermott,

Ronnie Laughton,

and Dido.



Chairing the meeting will be Claire Baldwin.



They all get to choose their 14 'best' teams from all RL clubs Championship 1 up and the following year it is these teams with the most votes that play in the elite division.



If any of these chosen teams go bust/enter admin, or run out of pies on a matchday they will be removed and placed on a 3 year ban from the elite division.



The league will be called - The A team.



and it will be sponsored by.....wait for it - You know them drumstick lollies - Them.



each team will only be allowed 2 'non-british' passport holding players and clubs can only spend 50% of their previous years revenue.



Sorted!



oh yeah!!! the meeting will be held at Frankie and Bennies Junc 32 Leeds (after normal serving hours to avoid disruption)

The current plight shows what they are now, not what they were when the licence was awarded. And, once again, they had one of the 14 best licence applications.





Clubs went bust in the semi-pro days - ironically enough, Bradford included. I'm not convinced that RL clubs are run any worse than pro clubs in a number of other sports TBH. There are fewer rich folk willing to prop them up though.



I remember the semi-pro days. The pro sport is a better product IMO. It would also hardly be a simple transition. For a start there's now a whole generation of pro RL players who have no other means of earning a living. What do we do - throw them all on the dole? Let the best and the brightest go to RU and be lost to the sport?





Erm - I'm not a Bulls fan.

I really don't wear rose-coloured glasses you know.

Each administration was distinct and unrelated to franchising. Crusaders couldn't sustain themselves on their crowds. Wakey was being chased by the taxman but would have been okay if the ground hadn't been called in, as they were due an advance payment once Planning Permission was granted. Bulls have made bizarre business decisions, like letting everyone go to games for a third of the price.

All point noted, so i withdraw my sympathy for your club being in peril.



However, although clubs did go bust pre-super league, their place in the top division of the competition was based on their on field performance and not some set of bogus criteria and yes there is a long list of clubs that had troubles, sadly many of which no longer exist.

The Bulls situation does ask questions about the validity of their SL licence and perhaps more importantly, asks whether there is a more fundamental problem with the general state of the games finances and both of these issues should be addressed.

WTF does Gary Schofield bring to the table????

Isn't it human nature for clubs to overspend? The fans would expect clubs to spend every penny of available money on strengthening their squads rather than the directors pocketing a profit, which means that clubs will always be run on a financial knife edge. All this thread is people whinging that it is all the fault of franchising and the RFL. How is it? If the RBS hadn't called in the Bulls overdraft, would they be in the mess now? How do we know what the Bulls plans were beyond this year? But no, let's all slate the RFL for not knowing that a club was being run in a way that was financial mess. They wanted a business plan and reassurances, not an in-depth analysis of their money.



Sports clubs are run on a knife-edge. That was the whole point of the salary cap, because clubs would overspend more without it. So Halifax fans need to get off their high horse. You've made your feelings clear: you want to stay in the lower league. Good. Stay there, and leave the top flight clubs to run their own affairs.

Of course it's related to franchising. Franchising is unfair. It prevents teams qualifying to play in the top flight by their efforts on the field. This is clear. So why do we have it? The claim was that the absence of P&R would put a stop to teams over reaching themselves financially in order to gain admitance to or remain in the top division. What's happened at Wakey, Crusaders, London and now in spades at what was one of the Leagues' top clubs Bradford proves that this claim is what many of us thought it was in the first place - hogwash.

It's a far fairer system. It takes the whole club into account over a number of years rather than simply on-field performance in 1 year.

No it wasn't. It was claimed it would help clubs to stop over reaching themselves financially. It has. If, with licensing & a salary cap, clubs are still spending more than they bring in - who's fault is that?

Yes let's look at what happened. Wakey's owner went bust due to his investments outside RL, Crusaders owner buggered off, Bradford -we don't know the full picture yet. Please describe how licensing was to blame for these things.

London haven't gone into admin under licensing, that was under P&R, so well done for successfully sh|tting all over your own argument.

Which one ?