Re: Peter Hood says Bulls on brink of going bust. : Wed Mar 28, 2012 11:54 pm  

So essentially, shafted by a bank.

Now where have I heard that before?

Re: Peter Hood says Bulls on brink of going bust. : Thu Mar 29, 2012 1:51 am  

Ferocious Aardvark wrote:

So essentially, shafted by a bank.

Now where have I heard that before?

You could say the Club and the Fans have been RBS'd*

* Royally Bloody Shafted!

Re: Peter Hood says Bulls on brink of going bust. : Thu Mar 29, 2012 2:13 am  

I hope to God you guys make it - losing Bradford would be an unthinkably awful blow to everyone in the game. I wouldn't miss getting soaked on your terraces once a season though which would be a small consolation

Re: Peter Hood says Bulls on brink of going bust. : Thu Mar 29, 2012 7:05 am  

Sorry not to appear supportive but basically if you owe money and you have assets then sell them. Simples as the Meerkats say. I think you will make it but be pragmatic.

Re: Peter Hood says Bulls on brink of going bust. : Thu Mar 29, 2012 7:06 am  

vbfg wrote:

I agree, and yet I have pledged. I did that because I don't see any way back from administration. The costs of running Odsal are huge. The costs of renting VP are huge. There have been many opportunities for sugar daddies to fall out of the sky and land at our feet, and still it has not happened. I have no reason to suspect it will once we are in administration.

I am pledging now to see what transpires. If we do not the club will be in administration for as long as their assets to sell to pay off creditors, and then it will cease to exist.

I share all your concerns, all the more so for the way this has been handled. They certainly knew about this last week because all season ticket holders received a letter on the day of the announcement.

I choose to pay now, try and ensure survival and then see what can be done about getting some change. It's not ideal but it's where we are.

If the club went into Administration, wouldn't any new owner be able to negotiate a good deal on the lease? Who else would rent it from the RFL?

Or would it revert back to the Council? In which case doesn't the same apply?

Re: Peter Hood says Bulls on brink of going bust. : Thu Mar 29, 2012 7:20 am  

NorthumbriaBull wrote:

! There is a chance our license could be revoked and the team we follow will be alien to us supporters

It is tough handing over money to the current board, but not half as tough as the prospect of watcing our bright young talent going, and playing lower league football!

our club!

Northumbria, sorry to butcher your post, but after what Hood has done, and the way we have been treated, isnt this company running our club alien to us already?? I for one would welcome Hood going so we can make it our club again. It is clearly not our club. we are treated as customers / consumers, not members. What real interraction do the club have with us that is honest?

The rubbish trotted out at the forums is insulting when you look back at it!

HOw can not paying the taxman for a decent chunk of PAYE cuase shock and doom when they ask for it???

It would be tough watching the team drop through the divisions, but there is no precident for this. In bfact the opposite is true. Wakey and Crusaders went into admin, and wakey are still in SL and crusaders chose to leave. Who would take our talent off us??? Who has space under the cap?
In fact, with Sykes going on loan today being another positive, we are removing some of the dead wood!

Re: Peter Hood says Bulls on brink of going bust. : Thu Mar 29, 2012 8:02 am  

Cibaman wrote:

If the club went into Administration, wouldn't any new owner be able to negotiate a good deal on the lease? Who else would rent it from the RFL?

Or would it revert back to the Council? In which case doesn't the same apply?

I doubt it would revert to the council, since the parties to the head lease are now the RFL and the council.

Whether a new entity could negotiate a sub-lease with the RFL on better terms than the present one (which, make of it what you will, I was assured was a good deal for the club...) can at this stage only be a matter for conjecture, I guess.

We had a long long debate at the Bullbuilder board meeting last night about the advantages, disadvantages and consequences of going into administration. It obviously helped that some of us have experience in this field. In short, we concluded that any protracted period of administration would probably (there can never be any certainty, so you have to look at the balance of probabilities) lead to the club in an ything like its present form never rising again. In particular, the administrator would have to start selling off assets pretty well immediately to generate cash to continue operating. You'd have to assume you would lose the very young, upcoming players that the club is depending on for its future.

The only way we could see an administration working would be if there was a 24-hour prepack - i.e. the new vehicle and financing is already in place when the administration order is granted by the High Court. Administrator is appouinted 3pm Monday, 9am Tuesday he announces he has sold the assets etc to NewBulls Ltd. Creditors are presented with a fait acompli, and (as with most prepacks) scream merry hell that they have been shafted (which invariably they have). BUT...such a prepack is invariably fronted by insiders - usually some or all of the management, sometimes a major shareholder. Without detailed inside information, it is very hard to put everything in place before getting your hands on the books and records and staff.

The prospective new owners will already have lined up all the necessary stakeholders (in our case those would have to include the RFL, the Council, the new players' union and maybe the GMB, maybe Sky, maybe Stobarts, maybe existing sponsors, the more important of the various other quangos and bodies the club engages with - as well as any external financing) before the administrator is appointed. And, of course, carried out the necessary due dilligence. We concluded it must be highly unlikely the existing management would be entertaining this option, and there has been no evidence that Caisley (the only other credible "insider") is well-advanced with such a project (although that could change, obviously). So, again on balance of probabilities, we have to assume at this stage that there is no "quick fix" on the horizon.

Speaking personally, as for what caused this disaster, it is obviously easy to point the finger at an inept and untruthful board. That is certainly what probably most people would conclude from how this all came out. And indeed, many many fans have made their views on this subject abundantly clear. For my own part, my immediate reaction was one of incredulity, and of feeling very badly betrayed. Followed shortly afterwards by anger at how we could be assured in January that everything was fine, and in March that we are two weeks away from being fed to the fishes. You could not make it up, could you?

But are things always as they first seem? So far, as we manage to piece together more facts and "information", a picture is starting to emerge that suggests that in January the club WAS confident that the situation was OK; but that events that they could not have anticipated (or have planned for) in the interim period have changed all that. Certainly that is the story coming out of the club, and at this stage, to me it seems to be stacking up. That situation could change, obviously, and whatever happens it seems Hood personally has lost the confidence of many of the fans by the manner of his communication and explanation over recent months. The extent that this is down to the man not the necessity of the circumstances may never be known.

But, as far as I personally can see, OK going into administration could lead to a new ownership and management, and certainly a resolution of the shareholding situation that Maislebugs so rightly points out is an enduring impediment to our future progress. Equally, it could lead to oblivion. But IMO it would very probably lead to the loss of the young talent we have coming through on which the future of the club needs to be built, whatever the outcome. And that is something I really cannot subscribe to. And in any case, even though I know others may not agree, I remain strongly of the view that Hood would stand down if a suitable successor would manifest himself. And it may well be that this will happen, if (as the club are suggesting) the commitment from the fans helps encourage a new investor to come on board. Guess only time will tell!

[Bullseye]

Re: Peter Hood says Bulls on brink of going bust. : Thu Mar 29, 2012 8:17 am  

So basically unless there's a good chance of a prepack we're completely up the creek?

As for losing our promising young players that's obviously a great concern, however Wakefield were in the same boat, possibly worse off. They had a prepack waiting in the wings I take it?

Re: Peter Hood says Bulls on brink of going bust. : Thu Mar 29, 2012 8:17 am  

Adeybull wrote:

snip

Adey,
I was a player at a (fairly dire at the time) semi-pro club in the mid-80s. We went bust, all the players (who became free agents) & management stayed. We just carried on as normal literally the next day. I assume this was going into administration, as players we didn’t care about the legal side, we just wanted to play for the club. Have things changed legally or could it have been a different form of going bust? There was nothing of value to sell I suppose. Could all Bulls players choose to stay or could they be forced to be sold by the administrators? Thanks in anticipation.

Re: Peter Hood says Bulls on brink of going bust. : Thu Mar 29, 2012 8:19 am  

Back shaft