It's the guy trying to find a buyer who is talking up the deal, not the RFL. If the RFL have paid £1.25 million for the lease, if they give it away just to save the Bulls, it will be unfair on every other club, because it shows special treatment, and also the worst piece of business by a very long way.
The RFL are being placed in an impossible position, and I suspect they will say no, and just allow a Newco to take over and remain in Super League when they go bust. How on earth can they give it away? If it is used for a lot of other things other than rugby, to what extent will the rugby take priority? It is, after all, £1.25 million of iconic status.
Remember the clubs do have some say in this as they could vote to exclude Bradford, so I think the RFL will have to tread very carefully when it comes to the ground issue.
I think that particular bit of Bullcrap may well come back to bite them on the backside - after covering up the bail-out with talk of saving an iconic stadium, they can hardly be seen to hand it over to a consortium of businessmen who would probably like to get hold of it for various non-rugby related activity.
The RFL were pretty intransigent with Steve Parkin's demands, despite his offer to add significant value to RL; I suspect they might be forced to go the same way with the ABC consortium; the need to save face could well outweigh the attraction of saving the Bulls.
It's the guy trying to find a buyer who is talking up the deal, not the RFL. If the RFL have paid £1.25 million for the lease, if they give it away just to save the Bulls, it will be unfair on every other club, because it shows special treatment, and also the worst piece of business by a very long way.
The RFL are being placed in an impossible position, and I suspect they will say no, and just allow a Newco to take over and remain in Super League when they go bust. How on earth can they give it away? If it is used for a lot of other things other than rugby, to what extent will the rugby take priority? It is, after all, £1.25 million of iconic status.
The RFL have put themselves in this position IMHO about time the RFL officials were made to justify their decision making they may have bitten off more they can chew this time, I am not saying its for the wrong reasons in principle but if its governing the sport thats exactly what it should do govern it and not get involved in the politics of running clubs with deals here and there they put themselves in an invidious position in that will not be able to do right for doing wrong. If and when this crazy situation gets resolved then I would expect some casualyies from the RFL
Can anyone wonder now why Mr Lewis resigned, as a professional businessman he must have been aghast at the pure unbridled ineptness of the rest of the RFL board No wonder our sport is becoming the laughing stock of the sporting world Should this farce result in BB being bailed out, we aught to seek a judicial review of our treatment maybe some recompense !!!
Exactly. Can't see how having just given the Bulls £1.25m for the lease of Odsal the RFL can even think of giving the lease to the ABC Consortium.
The Consortium are talking of investing £1m but I thought at least £1.2m was needed just to get to the end of the season without any further investment - doesn't add up.
Surely the RFL can see that this is a bum deal and will end in tears.
Wages of £200k per month, plus £1.25M to buy back the lease (considering that is what the RFL paid for it and selling for anything less would effectively be a donation to Bradford Bulls) means that their £1m they are looking to invest is short by at least £1/2m.
I'm not against the RFL selling the lease back to a new company, in fact I think that's precisely what they should do but it should not be sold for less than they paid for it.
Can anyone wonder now why Mr Lewis resigned, as a professional businessman he must have been aghast at the pure unbridled ineptness of the rest of the RFL board
Is the correct answer that he was offered the top job in a sport who used to work in and probably more money?
Is the correct answer that he was offered the top job in a sport who used to work in and probably more money?
If I were in his position, I'd have done one of two things; either get rid of the dead wood on my senior team and start again, or get the hell out of Dodge for fear of being so tainted by a series of failures that my career would be forever stalled.
Looks like he opted for the latter, leaving Big Nige floundering whilst he's on the telly schmoozing with minor royals at Wimbledon.