Incompetence to forget that selling the long term lease on the ground would have consequences on the security for the credit facilities of the club is not "unexpectedly".

No effect at all, since that lease would have no value as security in the event of insolvency - reverts to the council, and neither the club nor an administrator could assign without the council's permission. As I have said loads of times.

So what prompted the bank to suddenly change the terms it was offering to the Bulls?

The need to downsize its balance sheet (on which it payes levy to the government) and de-risk its loan-book, to make it a more attractive proposition for the governemnt to sell our stake at niot too big a loss, to reduce the need for more tax rises and spending cuts?



Their stated aim (as told to me ftf by a senior RBS official not that long ago) to exit from lending to RL clubs, for which sector they no longer had any appetite?



They put loads of sponsorship into Union?



It was the wrong time of the month?



Answers on a postcard, please, since the club professes to have no idea either.

The highlighted word being the operative one; I can't imagine a scenario in which a bank withdraws a facility on that scale from a business customer, without some dialogue.

I can - seen it happen. Indeed, the first time was when I was 17, and to a pig farmer client. He subsequently shot himself.



Usually on a pretext that does not really hold water, but allows the bank to give an excuse of sorts - they ARE very mindful of their PR, ATEOTD.



You usually get e.g. 30 days to pay down the facility, and the bank takes everything you pay in as an immediate reduction in available facility. This means you are effectively prevented from making any payments, since the facility drops £ for £ as you pay monies in. IIRC Ryan pretty well said on radio leeds yesterday teatime that that was what had happened, in as many words.

Why cant Bradford borrow against the guaranteed future Sky money?



My issue with whats happening currently is that the BoD seem to me begging for a cash injection to cover a short-term cash flow issue. They shouldnt need a cash injection to cover a short-term cash flow issue, they would need a loan. What i would worry about is that what is fans giving £500k to the BoD is being framed as giving £500k to the club. Which is an awful lot of money for a company which has no real assets and turns over only £3-4m a year.



If we are honest £1m is probably a higher figure than the Bulls are worth. Im troubled by the fact that when this is all finished the same people will own the same business in the same proportion surely there should be a commitment from the board to dispose of their shares in a trust or something, it has to be unacceptable for them to either continue to hold or even sell their shares until that £1m is either paid back to those who pledged or put back into the club.



It needs to be transparent that this £1m is to protect Bradford Bulls from administration, not to protect the investment of the current shareholders.

Sound post.



The injection is to replace the bank faility and the part of the RFL loan that the club did not believe it had to repay now.(separate issue as to how those circumstances arose in teh first place). As such, yes its obvious that - in the normal course of events - the club would look to replace loans A and B with new loan C.



Except...looks like (in common with most RL clubs unless they have come heir to a load of bricks and mortar or have a wealthy owner) no-one sees the club as a half-decent credit risk. I guess you can thank the numerous RL and other sports clubs that have fallen over in recent years for that, including of course Bradford City. So the RFL will have been the lender of last resort, and so if THEY pull out...nowhere else to go. and the loans from the RFL will surely have BEEN against future Sky monies.



Hence, I presume, the appeal to the fans and others.



In a more normal situation, this money would be sought as new share capital. But of course the club could not offer new shares to the public without first converting to a plc and then issuing a prospectus. Even if it passed the requirements for doing those things, it would take months.



Raising loans from the public would be equally fraught - if not more so.



So you are left with donations. Rightly or wrongly, and for better or for worse. Its a hell of a crap way to run a railroad, except for all the other ways right now which look even worse.



Of course, the club should subsequently tell all the pledgers that, at a point in the future, what they have paid in WILL be converted into shares, in recognition of what they did. Whether anything like that will happen is of course a different story.



There remain a number of unanswered questions. I remain hopeful that this is because the board still does not fully get the need to communicate more detail rather than for any other reason. As i say, I remain hopeful...



But I agree entirely about the shares goimng into a trust, so that any subsequent proceeds revert either to the club or to those who pledged. BUT...the board hold only 20% of the shares. THAT is probably a root cause of all the problems anyway. The remaining 80% are held by former directors, including Caisley at 26%, and a raft of small shareholders from the last time all this happened in 1963/4. How do you set about persuading THEM to forgoe their shares? What is in it for them, given that at the moment their "worthless" shares might be worth a bit if someone wanted to seize control (however unlikely that is, given you'd expect them to be sitting waiting to get the assets off an administrator).



So that is my take. We may get to know the whole picture in the fullness of time...or maybe not!

Thats fair enough,



I do think though that the BoD and the shareholders should be a bit more forthcoming with their sacrifices.

You need to tell RBS they have been lying in public then. Why they would do that given the reputational risk (yes I know, don't laugh) involved doesn't make sense.

I don't need to



As near as they can, given RBS are still the club's bankers, [url=http://www.bradfordbulls.co.uk/news/5791/BULLS%20CHAIRMAN%20CLARIFIES%20CLUB%27S%20BANKING%20RELATIONSHIP=#800000the club already has.[/url

Which goes full circle to my original point when you posted that very same statement, it comes down to who you believe, and RBS have nothing to gain by lying in public.