Apologies now for the long post, but might be of interest to some.
In terms of “cutting our cloth accordingly” there are far too many elephants in the room to us on the outside to understand where any cost cutting can be made.
• We are led to believe that opening and maintaining Odsal for RL cost the club circa £500k per year. Clearly moving away from the money pit makes good sense, and believe it or not, if that is true, Andrew Chalmers may actually have saved the club from administration (although it does not seem like the case at this time).
• Moving to Dewsbury will cost us £2k per game – when you consider the options of staying at Odsal, makes clear sense. What it does not tell us however, is the lost value of advertising, match day hospitality revenue, likely attendance drop etc, so the £2k cost will in “real” terms, be considerably higher.
• Where will our junior and reserve teams play? Again, what costs will be additional to this now we have “moved out”.
• Should we run an academy and reserve side next year? In order to receive funding towards the academy from the RFL, I believe we also have to run a reserve team. Does the receipt of funding, and what is now the annual sale of upcoming talent to SL or more wealthy sides, cover the cost of running such an outfit. At first guess I’d say almost certainly not. It would however be a very unpopular decision to see the scraping of our junior set up that has helped produce recent talents in the current GB Lions squad of Jake Trueman, John Bateman, Elliott Whitehead, Tom Burgess (and the rest unavailable or not selected). Unless the academy is self-sufficient, how can it be a justifiable expense at this time? It’s horrible to say, as I worked in previous years on the BullBuilder board, and they have done many fantastic things for the club, but without seeing the numbers first hand, I don’t see how the existence of the academy can continue in its current guise.
• Do we need to move to a 100% part-time playing staff? Clearly this would be a cheaper option than operating any sort of hybrid squad we currently use. Any full-time contracted players would need to agree to any change in terms, or accept some form of pay-off for the remainder of their contracts – again, an added expense to the list.
• Cash is king. Companies can make shed loads of losses and operate absolutely without problem provided they have the cash available to pay wages and suppliers. Clearly we are not cash rich as we once were in our hayday.
• Managing our existing creditors is key at this present moment in time. All it needs is a few of them to play ball and go through legal proceedings and any takeover will hit the floor pretty quickly. It is interesting to read that Chris Brereton has already started to speak with our main creditors to try and gain agreement on payment.
• How on earth are we supposed to manage payments to staff, players and suppliers needed in the coming weeks? Rumours of advance payments from the RFL of next years funding have surfaced, but we probably don’t have the cash to pay them going forwards in the long term if we are already looking at setting up deals with existing creditors, unless there is a mass influx of cash from season ticket sales, which will be very difficult to believe being high given the massive uncertainty hanging over the club.
• The clubs existing credit rating is horrendous (Well, that of Bradford Bulls 2017 Limited). From one credit agency, you are advised to offer zero credit, our rating is 0D (Poor), and High Risk. 3 CCJ’s remain unsatisfied (2 from June, 1 from late September), all for not what you would call significant amounts of money (6k, 1k & 2k). There may be legitimate reasons for not paying these I would add.
• The next accounts are due to be filed at Companies House (y/e 31/01/19) by the end of this month. A little more information may be there, but as the club publish unaudited abridged accounts, there’s not too much to play with and interrogate. What the last accounts (Y/E 31/01/18) did show however, was that Creditors: amounts falling due after one year were a value of £675k. Without further detail it is impossible to understand what makes up this balance – it will most likely be loans to individuals / organisations – possibly the RFL, who knows…….. Also, when those amounts are actually payable (or have been paid) is unclear…
• The last accounts showed Creditors : amounts falling due within one year to be £115k. If this has now risen to £500k it may be a shift from Creditors greater than 1 year to current, as per the point above
• Issues with Pensions payments have been declared as an “administrative error”, I’m hoping that is the case, and it’s not a case of robbing Peter, to pay Paul……(see above 2 points)
So in summary, from the outside in we are clearly in a mess financially, and I suspect there’ll be a few more skeletons coming out of the cupboard if previous administrations are anything to go by….
