Superleague Backchat : Wed Jul 16, 2014 8:11 am
Anybody who saw the programme last night would have been forgiven for thinking that London were the really hard done by club in the relegation battle. Even though Rod Studd did bring us into the conversation as a sad case?There then followed the usual bitty conversations about how badly we were run as a club, but the worst comment from Danny Lockwood was that we deserved our fate because of it. ( He has certainly lost all my custom for his League weekly rag)
What they didn't address was the state of the game and the inequalities brought about by the mismanagement of the RFL? I suppose they could devote a whole programme to that.
Anyway it got me thinking about how this mismanagement actually came about that led to our ultimate demise,( more or less confirmed relegation from next week.)
So I dug out some old files and the warning signals to the whole of SL, reference Peter Hoods concern in 2011, that all SL clubs were haemorrhaging cash losses at that time. Not that he said it as a warning but the last Paragraph, certainly indicating that other SL clubs were not having an easy time of it. It also dispels the myth they (back chat) perpetuated that the Bulls were mismanaged for years, it seemed that PH made very unwise decisions based on knee jerk reactions, if we are to take the article at face value, and due to the precise nature of those figures we probably can say it was reasonably accurate, one interesting fact was the compensation package we paid to Leeds , ie worked out at approx. £210k per year over 3 years (see steve colby article that confirmed the total as £629k). this would have left a shortfall of £101k which was considerably less than other clubs.
Anyway here is the article in question! Judge for yourself.
Quote:Peter Hood today warned that another season of failure was “simply unthinkable” after the Bulls reported increased losses and a fall in turnover.
Bradford’s accounts for the 2010 financial year revealed losses of £311,403, compared to £78,728 in 2009, while turnover fell from £4.6million to £3.96million.
Yet chairman Hood cited mitigating factors for the slump – as 2010 saw the Bulls pay the second, undisclosed instalment of a three-year compensation package to rivals Leeds over the Iestyn Harris transfer wrangle.
It was also the first year since 2003 that Bradford did not benefit from £334,286 of non-cash deferred income arising from the club’s return to Odsal.
Furthermore, the 2010 campaign marked the Bulls’ lowest crowds of the Super League era as the average home gate dropped to 8,434.
That left Hood to acknowledge the importance of Bradford – who have recruited six new players and will again spend close to or up to the salary cap in 2012 – emerging as a serious force once again.
The average Super League club lost £553,879 in the same period last year, so we did better than most, but our football hasn’t been good enough for too long and we know that
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