Bradford Bulls were in turmoil yesterday when the directors quit just minutes after the club were docked six Super League points for going into administration.

The Rugby Football League imposed the sanctions after the Bulls breached the game’s insolvency regulations for the second time in 12 months.

The points deduction was due to be made at 10am this morning but was brought forward when it became clear that Bradford’s directors — and prospective formal owners — were set to pull out of the club in protest.

Bulls chairman Mark Moore duly confirmed that Bradford Bulls 2014 Ltd, the holding company which had a bid to purchase the club from the administrator accepted last week, has withdrawn its offer.

In a statement, Moore said: “It is with great sadness and frustration that we have been led to this point.

“I believe that we have been forced into making this decision, due to the Rugby Football League’s proposed sanction of a six-point deduction, making relegation almost a certainty.”

The deduction leaves the club bottom of Super League. They have won one and lost one of their opening two matches but are now four points adrift at the bottom of the table, with two teams to be relegated.

Yesterday’s development is the latest twist in a saga that has reduced one of Super League’s most successful clubs to a laughing stock.

Bradford have never been out of the top flight since the switch to summer rugby and were Super League champions four times in the first 10 years.

They were three times crowned World Club champions and reached the Grand Final five years in a row up to 2005, when the rot set in.

Bulls’ simmering financial worries erupted in the summer of 2012 when they entered administration despite raising more than £500,000 through a public appeal.