One of the players released by the Bradford Bulls following their liquidation this week has described what the squad were forced to endure during the club’s two-month period in administration.
Four weeks before the start of the new season, Kris Welham was officially made a free agent on Tuesday following the liquidation of the Championship side, who were world champions as recently as 11 years ago.
A number of players have subsequently found contracts with other sides as work goes on behind the scenes to re-form the Bulls. Welham has signed a two-year deal with the Super League side Salford.
The 29-year-old says the players and staff were constantly kept in the dark over the club’s future, insisting that he had no choice but to look elsewhere when the worst fears of many were confirmed when the club was liquidated.
“It was simply unbelievable what we’ve had to go through,” Welham told the Observer. “As players, we just wanted to know what was going on and we had so many questions: was there a buyer? Were we getting paid? Was there even going to be a club at the end of all of this? It was just horrible.
“We were getting no answers to these questions from the people in charge of the administration and, to make matters worse, we were getting fed lies from people who said they knew what was happening all the time. I know it was a difficult situation to manage and everyone wanted it to get sorted, but enough was clearly enough for some of the lads.
“This was the last straw and action needed to be taken to sort my future and I’ve had to find something else just a few weeks before the season starts.
“Some of the boys might struggle money-wise, which is awful. I just hope the club can re-form, but this process was ridiculous.”
Welham also said that the demise of the Bulls, where he spent a solitary season, is a warning for the rest of the game. “It’s amazing that a club who were world champions a decade or so ago are where they are,” he says.
“It’s like Leeds, Wigan or St Helens being like this in a decade: can you imagine? It can’t be allowed to happen in this day and age, having 30 players and dozens of staff out of work is unthinkable. There’s got to be a way to prevent this, surely?”
After being signed by the Red Devils, the centre – who scored 29 tries in 30 championship appearances for Bradford last year – is thankful he can concentrate on his career again. “It’s a huge weight that’s been lifted off not just my shoulders, but my family’s,” he says.
“It’s stability which we’ve not had for the last six months, so it’s nice to be able to relax and concentrate on playing rugby. I’m excited for the new challenge but I sincerely hope a big chunk of the players that are at Bradford still can go and get their jobs back.”
The Rugby Football League, which has set a deadline of noon on Monday to receive offers to set up a new club, took the unusual step of making public its demands and the process potential new owners will have to go through to meet them. Any new owners of a revived Bradford – which has gone into administration three times in five years – would have to provide personal guarantees that the team will fulfil all their fixtures over the next three years.
