Jersey Bulls 'reluctantly withdraw' from League Cup competition due to travel costs

Jersey Bulls have pulled out of the competition for the Combined Counties Premier League Cup due to mounting travel costs.

The club says it was "a difficult decision" but it had no choice due to the cost of competing.

The Bulls are the only team in the league which has to cover not only their own travel and accommodation costs when visiting the UK but also to put up visiting teams when they play in Jersey.

This season, several matches have been cancelled or postponed at short notice, meaning the club has had to forfeit the money paid to airlines, hotels and coach operators.

Ian Horswell, the club's CEO, said: "It is really unfortunate, but we need to be pragmatic with our finances. We set a travel budget at the start of the season and it is going to be exceeded.

"We are working hard on other ways to generate secondary match day income which are currently unavailable to us at Springfield."This is a difficult decision, and we truly hope that this is the last of them. On a sporting front, we had a terrific opportunity to do well in this cup competition as the favourites from our league have been knocked out already. However, we do hope it will help the league with fixture scheduling as there isn’t the space in the calendar for us to have another four fixtures".