That is correct sir, any why Fev and Hunslet won't be in any trouble.

I don't agree with it but thems the rules.

Bit OT but any idea what's going to happen with York and the new stadium? I saw the stadium got approved but Ive lost track of the ins and outs of York City Knights position in it all.

Or should I call them the York Suicide Bats?

All hail York Suicide Bats RLFC!



The stadium is getting built and will be open at the back end of 2016. If YCK want to be in it, they have to get their egotistical maniac of a Chairman out of the club ASAP.

Either he sells so we can crack on, move in to Bootham Crescent and start building towards a place in the middle 8s.

Or he carries on until the club folds very soon, then we can crack on, move in to Bootham Crescent and start building towards a place in the middle 8s, albeit probably starting on -6 points.

By announcing that the players on 1 year contracts with either Hunslet or Fev are under contract for Leeds next season, are they not trying to get round the rules? They may have shot themselves in the foot with that one and may have been better keeping it hush hush.

So better to be duplicitous or at the very least economical with the truth?
It all smacks of sour grapes to me.

Oh there's no doubt they are getting AROUND the rules, but they aren't BREAKING any rules so no problem.

Leeds are not breaking rules, but Fev and Hunslet probably are.

But how does the rugby league sanction moves and then look into them later?

How are Fev and Hunslet breaking any rules? From their point of view they've signed some players on one year contracts.

If we're being honest its highly unlikely all (most?) of the players concerned will actually come back to Leeds anyway.

Because at least three are contracted to Leeds into 2016. So the question how does the RFL confirm a move if it is not a loan? A loan that at the time of the announcement was said a loan?

The RFL registers every player contract, partly to ensure the club has the right amount of homegrown/overseas players and to ensure other things like visas are in place and they fit in the salary cap.

Since these players have been playing you would have to assume the RFL accepted the registration of these contracts for Fev and Hunslet.
If they were accepted at the time, I don't see how the RFL could punish the club's now. If the contracts weren't in order or the RFL didn't like them for some reason they shouldn't have registered the players and dealt with the issue at the time.

From what I've seen the players were announced as players being released and then signed by another club. Ie not a loan (as they aren't Leeds players for 2015) and not even a direct transfer.
The only difference to any other type of every day player signing is that they've signed a contract with Leeds for 2016. The same as the players that went to London last year did.

I'm still of the opinion that if the RFL don't want this to happen then put it in the rules and don't accept the contracts at the time. To "investigate" after the fact is just crazy.

In full agreement with you on. Not sure why it is been brought up as even if against the rules, the RFL surely must have agreed to, which is what I was saying.




Where have you seen this? because that is exactly what I keep saying, I have not seen one single thing saying the players were released. I was sure the announcement at the time, rather than this last week, said they were loans.

I know that Frosties said last season that Duckworth had been released to Hunslet, and I questioned at the time it was a loan signing, so when it happened again for this season it seemed to back that up.

wigan sent burke i think on season long loan to bradford in the 2nd game and got injured and went straight back to wigan for rehad and never returned to bradford.hasnt this thing not been common practice for years.

Yep agree with that but I thought they were announced as signings by Hunslet and Fev rather than loans, admittedly that's going off my memory which isn't the best!

The 4 at Fev - www.therhinos.co.uk/news/24442.php#.VRknroakqrV

The 4 at Fev - www.therhinos.co.uk/news/24442.php#.VRknroakqrV

how can teams have a youth policy as once they dont qualify for 19's what do u do with them reserve leagues need to come back or we are gonna lose a lot of youth as we cant keep them and they get no game time.hull fc had mcphereson and shaul was in the same position and if mcphereson hadnt of got injured he would of left hull fc.if youth is the future the rfl need to provide a method to enable clubs to retain fringe/youth players

Quote ="Him"The 4 at Fev - www.therhinos.co.uk/news/24442.php#.VRknroakqrV'" So it is quite open to interpretation. Nowhere does it say they are released from their Rhinos contracts, but then again nowhere does it actually say these are loan signings. Hence how did the RFL treat these deals. Surely though the fact that some of these players have actually been doing community work with the Rhinos since that deal was announced, would say they are contracted to the Rhinos and remunerated from them?

Quote ="Him"The 4 at Fev - www.therhinos.co.uk/news/24442.php#.VRknroakqrV'" So it is quite open to interpretation. Nowhere does it say they are released from their Rhinos contracts, but then again nowhere does it actually say these are loan signings. Hence how did the RFL treat these deals. Surely though the fact that some of these players have actually been doing community work with the Rhinos since that deal was announced, would say they are contracted to the Rhinos and remunerated from them?

In the real world folk can have multiple contracts of employment.
Is the Championship not generally part time?
Therefore, nothing illegal for a player to have a playing contract with a championship club & a second contract doing community work for another club.
But I guess that would depend on the RFL rules, mind you we've all seen the mess they're in c.f. last year with Batley & other club(s) IIRC.
As has been said this all stems from the abolition of "A" teams caused by cost issues.
Laurel & Hardy comes to mind.

This should have been stamped out 2 years ago when Swinton and Warrington were doing the same thing, but as Swinton weren't a threat to the top Championship clubs the RFL did nothing. The players who had supposedly signed for Swinton (all 8 of them) were still training with Warrington and in the case of one player Warrington sent him off on loan to London which was strange seeing as he was meant to be a contracted Swinton player !

In this particular case of the Leeds/Fev agreement, it is clear that there is manipulation of the rules happening although whether that amounts to a breach of the rules is another argument altogether. For example, in the announcement about the players joining Fev on the Leeds website it quotes Andy Hay as being grateful to Gary H for allowing the players to join Fev. But, if they had genuinely been released by Leeds and were no longer under their control then they'd be able to sign for whoever they liked as free agents and wouldn't require Gary H to [u[iallow[/i[/u anything. He'd have no say whatsoever in the matter.

As far as I can see, nowhere have the operational rules around player registration been broken.

These players have a playing contract with Featherstone for 2015, and Featherstone alone. They are not registered with Leeds for 2015. In theory, if they wanted to they could buy out their Featherstone contracts and sign for someone else.

You could argue that the spirit of the operational rules has been broken with this kind of arrangement, which I suspect is where the club(s) who have objected are coming from.

I'll bet you a pound to a penny though, if a similar arrangement had been put in place with Hunslet no-one would have complained as they're not a threat to make the top four.

On the face of it that's correct although we don't know what is happening behind the scenes. For example, do any of these players take part in any Rhinos training sessions (that's against the operational rules) ? Do they receive any form of remuneration from the Rhinos (e.g. retainer) ? I'm not saying they do BTW, just pointing out that there are ways in which the OR's can be broken which are technically very minor but which could be valid cause for complaint by Fev's rivals.

Well it says they've been signed by Fev on a 1 year contract. Not a season long loan. And that they have a deal with Leeds for 2016.

That seems to me that they're Fev players for 2015.

Yes, but then they would have had to have been released from their contract, which it doesn't state anywhere, and they have been working for the Rhinos since, which would suggest they are still under contract. Like I said, how the RFL come up with these I don't know.

Would doing community work for the Leeds Rugby Foundation charity be "working for the Rhinos"?

Matty Nicholson is a Community Development Officer for Leeds Foundation but plays for Fev, well he's struggling with a long-term injury at the moment but there's no dispute that he's a Fev player not a Leeds one.

I do agree that the real problem is being in a halfway house caused by not having either a reseerve team setup or a genuine feeder competition.

As I said before though, of those slated to come back in 2016, how many do we think actually will? I'll start by saying not all of them. I wouldn't be surprised if half of those mentioned never play for Leeds again.