Keighley Cougars Rugby League Club supporters today demanded a fair deal from Bradford Council following a decision to make a one-off payment of £4.6 million to Bradford Bulls.

They say it is "unacceptable" that council tax payers in Keighley have in the past been subsidising a rugby league team in Bradford while last year an appeal for help by the Cougars was "brushed aside".

The payment to the Bulls, agreed at Tuesday's Council executive committee meeting, will buy out a contract signed in 1986 which required the Council to pay more than £300,000 a year to the Super League champions until 2019.

Council chief executive Ian Stewart said the £4.6 million lump sum - to be paid over two years - will enable the club to improve its Odsal Stadium home after the collapse of two proposed multi-million pound schemes involving private developers. The long-term contract was described as a "millstone round the Council's neck" at the meeting.

The committee also agreed to give to a 150-year lease at Odsal on a peppercorn rent to give the club long term security.

But today members of Keighley Cougars Independent Supporters' Association said their club should have equal treatment and they are contacting the Council and Keighley Town Council about the issue.

The Cougars play in the flight below the Bulls in the sport.

Association spokesman Andy Johnson said: "The figures involved would, it seems, confirm the effective subsidies the Bradford Bulls have been receiving from Bradford Coun-cil ratepayers - including tens of thousands of Keighley citizens.

"We find it unacceptable that we should be forced to fund a rugby league club in the city that we have no affinity with, while the Cougars' call for help last year was unceremoniously brushed aside. This would seem to typify Bradford Council's attitude to Keighley as a whole.

"It is not enough for Bradford Council to cite contractual obligations as the reason for ongoing assistance. We recognise that this deal carved out under a previous administration has tied the hands of the Council to the benefit of the Bulls. But we feel the Council has a moral obligation to treat its ratepayers with some form of equity and look to assist the Cougars in some form regarding development of facilities.

"We are sick of seeing our rates being used to fund another team in a neighbouring city."

The association is urging people to go to an open forum at Cougar Park at 8pm tomorrow when new owners Neil Spencer and Colin Farrar will meet the public for the first time and answer questions.