Tiny little insignificant backwater Wales will never be really competitive with England, let alone Australia, in rugby league. It has a tiny population and rugby league there has to compete with rugby union and football. There is no population there for rugby league to grow large. It can only ever hope top be a second tier rugby league nation.

Only France has the potential, given its huge population, of generating enough players and money, to become competitive with England, Australia and New Zealand (as it once was before rugby league became a full time professional game). If rugby league could attract 10% of the population of France to be players or followers --roughly six million fans and 100,000 players at all levels --- it could be as powerful as New Zealand and Australia. However it will never appeal on that scale until it has more professional clubs. And the only way France can have more professional clubs is by promoting them slowly over a 6-9 year period into Super League --- starting next year with Toulouse.

Once you have four professional French clubs in Super League, France will be successful internationally because there will be more than 50 professional French players to select 18 from for the French national team.

Ultimately six French clubs would be ideal, playing in a conference set up within Super League. Those clubs should be: [iCatalans, Toulouse, Avignon[/i and [iParis[/i, to be followed later by[i Lyon[/i and then either [iMilles[/i or[i Montpellier [/ior [iBordeaux.[/i There will be heightened interest in rugby league in France each time you add a new French professional club to Super League, such that more French boys will start to play, and more rich men will step forward to offer to invest money to create a new club for the future. French TV networks will start to offer more serious money for broadcast rights the more French clubs there are.

I was wondering when someone was going to mention Wales. I agree it's a better bet. When the CC Final was held at Cardiff it always attracted attention from local fans; the RFL should have built on that.

And Wales's small population is neither here nor there. It doesn't stop them being being one of the main forces in world RU. NZ hardly has a massive population either. And NZ's example is fruitful; it gives the lie to the argument, "Ah, they're all mad about RU; it's a waste of time". The success and growth of league in NZ indicates just the opposite.

Why don't we take heed?

The point is that RL is significantly stronger in France than in Wales, so build on that first.
Wales has plenty of potential and could sustain a SL club if there was enough desire to do so.

Heaven on earth for some,they wouldnt get to many games but still.......

I've read some lunatic ideas but this thread is winning. 6 French clubs in SL? Somebody been on the vin? So, we wreck the SL for English clubs by kicking half into the Championship, presumably in this period France suddenly discover 250 good SL standard RL players who populate the 6 clubs and are good enough to compete internationally; and then what?

Comes a day, France is now "strong enough" so from a given date all the French clubs are parachuted back into a new strong French league, leaving English SL with what - the remaining 6, plus another half dozen that are part time and been languishing in the Championship for 10 or 20 years to accommodate French development?

It is nuts. Totally nuts.

Catalan has been a success story but really that is the opportunity - there, now -for the FRENCH to build and develop a FRENCH league with the ultimate aim of Catalans being initially the Glasgow Celtic of that league. Cats would cede from SL and play in the new French league.

It is NOT up to the RFL or ESL to kick on from here to do all the âne travail for decades in the fantasy world of handing the French some tailor-made league. We can and should be of every assistance to them to develop their game, but really if despite the development and progress of Catalans, there is no will, drive, organisation or money within France to pick up the baton and run with it, then fsck'em.

It's so depressing that some RL fans genuinely think Catalans are only here as a spring-board for an independent French league.

Do you really just want to watch northern team v northern team in SL forever more?

That's wrong, the fact is, nobody knows why Catalans are "here". We should know. The RFL/ESL should have a medium term and long term plan in relation to French based clubs, and we should all know what it is. But we don't. In fact, I assume that they do not actually have any such plan, at all, and are just winging it.

But anyway, since you obviously do know, please tell the rest of us. If Catalans are NOT "only here as a spring-board for an independent French league", then why are they here?




Nice straw man, but who said that? We are just speccies, what we "want" is pretty much irrelevant; but if there is a sensible and viable plan to change that situation then we should know what it is. Bearing in mind that most clubs are already on the financial edge, some pie-in-le-sky European Champions league talk just sounds to me like the sort of thing you might hear on a delusional ward if you left the patients with a crate of vino and a supply of LSD.

I agree with you.

What e need is the best way for the sport to grow, both in the UK and in Europe (which at the moment is effectively France).
If that means dropping Catalan from SL or adding another 1,2,3or more French clubs doesn't actually matter.

What we have currently is people running the game who don't even have a plan, although allowing successful clubs to ply their trade in the top flight
was a good idea (despite the new format being one of the most convoluted and complicated systems that any sport could have).

Our sport is always to busy looking for a magic formula, instead of making a log term plan and then seeing it through.

IF the game ever becomes a truly national sport, there would necessarily be fewer "heartland" clubs in the top flight but, most supporters have immense
difficulty accepting this and I believe this is partly because there is no long term plan n the public domain.

While I COMPLETELY agree with all the above don't forget its the Faux French troll that wants 6 French teams in SL and the key word here is troll.

But they really don't. Any such expansion would be slow, over many seasons. I'd say the overwhelming majority of upporters of all teams in all leagues are perfectly cool with the idea of divisions, promotion and relegation, as long as selection is on merit.

indeed, but the 100% lack of any plan as to where ESL is, or even may, be going is what I find infuriating and an omnishambles. A rudderless, hopeless ship.

Like has been mentioned before. I despair at the attitude of some supporters on here and I fear reading some of the letter pages in the weeklys it's a rather large group.

You just have to watch a televised Catalan game played in beautiful 30 degree weather in front of a large partisan crowd to see how they benefit the look of our game.

SL is a much stronger league with Catalans, yet some would gladly kick them out because they are not English or more importantly some backwater village/town/ suburb of West Yorkshire or Lancashire.

And to defend Jean. He was not advocating 6 sides in SL proper, he said that if 4-6 strong clubs in France come along interested then a French conference of the SL may be an idea.

But let's not bother with any ideas or long term planning lets just kick Catalans out and forget the Frenchies...they should just find a billionaire to bankroll a French SL the lazy bar stewards.

In fact Lets just go back to playing County leagues in winter time

Like I despair at the ability to read or comprehend of some on here

Yes, we have queues of billionaire sponsors, don't we, all seduced to the game by the fact that one of our clubs plays somewhere passably warm. Just remind me who they are?

I can't recall anybody proposing any such nonsense. Who are they? You didn't make them up, did you?

What, you mean a league of, er, French clubs, playing French clubs, in France? That's novel. I wouldn't have thought of that.

Hang on, it's precisley the apparent total absence on the part of RFL of any plan or planning whatsofeckingever that I am complaining about!

My own view is that after all this time the impetus for any progression in the French game should be coming from a French source. Whereas there doesn't seem to be any impetus, or any plan, or indeed anything at all, noit from any source, not French, not English, no plan. But anyway if you are right and a billionaire is needed then 't job's fscked, as even we don't have any of them spare.

I never suggested that there should be ejection of half the existing English teams to make way for 6 French clubs in Super League. I would retain most of the existing English clubs (though I would prefer to see the likes of Bradford and London back in SL at the expense of perhaps Castleford and Widnes, but that is another matter).

We would [iadd [/inew French clubs to the SL roster as long as they had a business plan and 15 French players. 8 more Antipodeans would make up the minimum 23 man squad. So talk of finding 250 SL standard players is complete rubbish. 4 French SL clubs requires less than 100 players (minimum 60 French), 6 French SL clubs requires less than 150 players (minimum 90 French). I suggested we aim for 4 French clubs at first over a 9 year period, starting next year with Toulouse alone. Toulouse is ready to join SL next year. It has the money and the players, and the fans will come as they did when Catalans was promoted to SL. . Toulouse will have the modern stadium ready in a year (it is perfectly located opposite a metro station).

As each new club establishes itself we can think of a new French club 3 years later. The establishment of each new French club will awaken more French youth to our game and create a thriving junior setup in France, from which new French talent can eventually fill the professional ranks. Three more French clubs added to SL powerhouse Catalans should take us till 2022. Then [iif that works[/i we could plan up to another 2 over time to get us to 6, and a conference structure for SL.

The French TV contract will increase in value the more French clubs we have. The main thing that the TV networks want is some kind of geographic spread (which is why I specified Paris as 4th French club, and later Lyon if we expand further)..

These ideas make sense if we have an RFL administration that really cares about the international game, and can see beyond the M-62.
I am just an obsessed troll and cannot debate the issues.

It's a tricky issue.

The "free" promotion and relegation will only work if the "game" is an attractive enough proposition for our pay masters (Sky)
We all have to dance to their tune, be it with play offs, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday fixtures and the bottom line is that, IF there was
a substantial additional TV revenue to be had by including additional "expansion" clubs, things would be likely to change to accommodate these clubs.

Let's face it, RL as a northern based sport will never attract the level of sponsorship that we all crave, we struggle like hell to get a sponsor for SL and it is only
the TV money that keeps the game as a full time professional sport, so inevitably, we all have to do as we are told.

For me, I have no issue with another French club in the league and the benefits to the gam on the bigger stage make it worth while but, while we keep on meddling with the structure of the leagues and worrying that The RFL will change anything and everything on a whim, the game can not move forward properly.

The question we should ask is, where do we want our sport to be in 5, 10 and 20 years time ?

The answer I'd give to that is "in existence as a sport with a full-time pro league", and at the moment, while I'm fairly confident we'll be here in 5 years, I'm really not very confident about 10 and 20 years hence.

The changes to the way pay-tv is operating are very worrying for second-tier sports when it comes to getting the big central deal with £Xm over Y years. Soccer will never have a problem. RU and cricket will always be rescued by their establishment connections. But RL is under serious threat. If pay-tv starts to move to the pay-per-match model rather than the annual subscription model, as many analysts suggest, then even our five biggest clubs will start to struggle to generate enough TV income to pay a full-time squad. As for the rest, it's back to semi-pro status for them, and that starts to present further difficulties even for the big clubs, as some of their fans won't want to pay to watch them handing out another hammering to a semi-pro side, so their own income will slide.

None of this is certain, of course. But we need to be aware that we are offering a less and less attractive option to broadcasters - no matter what we say to ourselves about the quality of entertainment on offer. As a sport, we are contracting, both in number of large clubs (Bradford), and in geographical spread (London). Before anyone points out the spread of clubs below SL level, I'm afraid that's irrelevant in terms of attracting cash to the game. The only thing we can sell is the SL. We can barely give the championship coverage away, and nobody is interested in covering the lower leagues at all.

Up till now, SKY have judged that they earn enough through RL-related subscriptions and advertising to justify the expense of the central deals. But as we move increasingly into a world where people pay for individual matches, rather than to subscribe to SKY Sports, then that income is going to drop, because at the moment, all of us pay for the low profile matches between the also-rans as well as the meaningful matches between the contenders, as part of our subscription. But in future, quite a few of us will choose only to pay for the meaningful games. In addition, the advertising for RL is looking increasingly grim. Not only are our club sponsors (outside of the big 5) becoming embarrassingly parochial, but the TV advertisers buying time in the broadcasts are becoming very one-dimensional : a lot of adverts for payday lenders, bookies and other low-rent products. These people won't be paying top dollar, and it's in part because of the perception of our audience demographic. That perception is not going to improve unless we seek to bring in new, preferably wealthier, areas.

There is a clear clash between what many fans and clubs want (to retain what is effectively a closed shop preventing realistic access to the SL for any club outside the M62 corridor, and deciding SL membership only on on-field performance rather than a broader package), and what sort of SL offering might actually enable us to maintain sufficient TV/advertising income to sustain full-time rugby league (big clubs playing in full stadia with a broad geographic spread). If we are serious about surviving as a full-time pro competition, we need a plan which will provide additional big clubs, and additional spread. For all its faults, the licensing system was designed to do that, even if its implementation was cack-handed. The current system offers nothing. No new large club is going to emerge from the new structure. No new area will be able to rise through the ranks, and there is no mechanism for admitting one even if the business case were very strong. All we've done is say "This is what we have, and we've found a slightly different way of presenting the same old thing". Perhaps even more worrying is we've abandoned any idea that we might one day change. To a certain extent, the Crusaders/Gateshead/London clubs represented more than just their specific marketplaces : they represented a statement that the sport was growing, developing, and promised more in the future. We now promise nothing but what we have. That's a huge gamble.

This 'Northern' and 'M62 corridor' business seems to be getting a little out of hand. Most sports are regional to an extent. Take rugby union. It's strongholds are the home counties, the West country, and the Midlands. Take Sale and Newcastle out of the Premiership and there'd be no 'Northern' teams in there. Would we then hear people say, who wants to watch Southern teams playing each other forever?. For many years, 'Northern' teams dominated English football; London sides were regarded as a joke who fell far short of the standard of Man Utd, Liverpool, etc. But even then I don't recall people saying Northern domination was ruining the game.

On a selfish note, I'd love to see a wider geographical spread in the SL; it's a 200 mile journey for me to see Superleague. But I certainly don't object to the top sides being Northern.

I'm not familiar with the South of France, so I don't know just how popular league is there. Some here seem to be saying that it's virtually like the strongholds of league in this country, where whole towns live and breathe the sport. Well, maybe it is; I wouldn't know. What I do know is that if you talk to people in Northern France about 'rugby a treize', they don't know WTF you're talking about.

And no, it's not my accent, it's not that bad!

You talk to people in Sheffield and they no nothing of league! What's your point?

Nice personal insults thrown in there!

Anyway have no interest in replying in any detail to this drivel

Not sure anyone wants Les Cats kicked out, they're in now and making a reasonable fist of it, the conversation was about Toulouse, and whether they are ready and indeed whether they should be parachuted in.

Like, er, none?


Look, you know I'm right, there's no shame in accepting correction.

I wouldn't bring any expansion team in unless A) they added to the tv deal and B) the RFL had money to bank roll them to ensure success. Anything else is just setting up for yet more failure. How many expansion clubs have fallen by the wayside since 1997?

Scott Dureau and John Kear on SL Show on why we need another French club in SL:- www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-league/31944980 Knock yourself out Jean.

Scott Dureau and John Kear on SL Show on why we need another French club in SL:- www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-league/31944980 Knock yourself out Jean.

It was hard to resist, sorry.

Well, the headline says "Scott Dureau wants another French team in Superleague", but he didn't quite say that, did he?