They have left themselves looking a bit daft by not coming out and saying this was the case when they made up the winning the grand final rule.

Someone else accused me of missing the point. Surely the point is that established clubs i.e. Featherstone, Leigh etc are wasting what little money they (and the rfl) have coming up with proposals for a Superleague place they are never going to get.

The RFL are defending these clubs from themselves. Their pi$$ poor PR is a side issue.

It's a PR issue when it doesn't involve your own club. I'm alright Jack


Anyway, the RFL have a long precedent of shafting clubs by fecking up their own rules. The salary cap cheating fiasco is right up there with the best of them.

All fans not already booked their trip there shouldnt book now and all that have should go and make their feelings known whilst there, banners etc, get max publicity on this issue.
Possibily of a Toulouse and NEW SOUTH WALES SCORPIONS franchise in 2012 looking good as the Crusaders players can also play for the Scorpions, how fair is that.

Has this been reported anywhere other than in that top quality tabloid newspaper? No mention on sportinglife, bbc, superleague and rfl websites at all.

Before I get too worked up over this, I'm going to wait until I see it reported in a reputable journal.

Both the RFL and Toulouse have confirmed it in League Express. I don't remember when this suddenly became disreputable.

The disdain that some people on here have for Championship clubs is disgusting.

This issue really is separating the genuine fans of the game who favour expansion and those who will don't care if they destroy lower league RL as long as Super League has expansion clubs.

The Toulouse business is very dodgy and it does look like it's designed to fast track the French into SL. Having said that the original criteria of having been allowed to qualify for application through winning a minor trophy is ridiculous. The NR cup should not be put on a par with the Championship Grand Final. If you can't win the Grand Final you obviously can't be competitive enough to be considered for SL!

I'm all for extending SL to include more French teams but only on the condition that these teams don't receive SKY money. We should have 14 British teams sharing the pot. The money is after all coming from UK based subscribers. If we want to expand SL to include French teams it's only right that they negotiate there own TV rights in France.

And what line of reasoning would you have for kicking Wakey out before Castleford?

Can't really defend the RFL if this is true, and to promote TO before they were ready would be a mistake. Celtic only narrowly lost the GF and were promoted, and that was considered too early. Hopefully TO will make the final and all this will be irrelevant, I dread to think what would happen if a mid-table team went up.

However, nice to see that the Widnes and Leigh fans are as quick to draw swords as ever

Why wouldn't they?

They have less reason to trust the RFL than anybody else and this if true would have proved it.

However there are some reports that it may not be.

Right. So by lying, going back on their word and changing the 'criteria' at their own will the RFL are protecting clubs with 'no realistic chance of SL'....

Of all the bull**** ways to put a positive spin on this outrageous lie, yours has to be the most ludicrous..

Yet you ignore all the fans of Super League clubs who are also outraged by this. This isn't about Leigh or Widnes but you carry on with your stupid agenda. You're no doubt one of the 'I'm alright Jack brigade'....

Cretin.

The RFL has now issued a press release stating that Toulouse do indeed have to reach the 2010 Grand Final to apply for a 2012 Super League licence.
An RFL official told our correspondent Mike Rylance that they didn't have to, but it seems that the RFL got it wrong.

What about this?

[i"A Toulouse spokesman has indicated that the club was aware they wouldn't have to satisfy the on-field criteria when they entered the league just over 12 months ago."[/i
[urlhttp://www.lasttackle.com/news_3335-toulouse-handed-path-to-super-league.html[/url

Yeah but look where the vast majority of posters in this thread are from, and look at the posts they have made. Boycott the Co-Op, petition the government, sue the RFL etc. It brought back memories of all the hilarious dummy spits around the time of the license decision. And if you had read my post, you would see I was actually agreeing with their sentiment. I just thought it was funny that they were so outraged and reactionary over something that apparently didn't even turn out to be true.

The RFL has now apologised to me, as the editor of League Express, for having misinformed us on this issue.

We need our Elite level competition to have the biggest teams in it. Not necessarily the best on the field, but the biggest crowds and the biggest abillity to attract people to the sport, to help finance it and help support it. Sometimes when it is you team it is hard to accept that they are not meaningful enough to be included.

You have to make comparisons with the sport in Australia, where it is very strong. It gets press coverage, it gets its own sections on national websites etc. In this county we are totally tinpot, no one cares in the media and it's mocked as mickey mouse by the majority, despite the entertainment value it offers.

In Australia the NRL sides are more or less THE sides. Their second string accepts that and gets on with it, the smaller clubs acting as feeder clubs in terms of players and support bases for the big NRL fish. You go out and watch your local side because it's close to your house and cheap and has a lovely leagues club to soak tongue in. You also follow an NRL big fish, with the players for the local side desperate to one day represent that NRL side. You create proper channels for kids to flow through in order to reach the NRL. Here we have a totally different sporting culture fueled by a history of promotion and relegation. Everyone believes their side could one day make it and placing a unpenetrable glass roof over their heads in stopping promotion suddenly makes it feel soulless and they ask what the point is, despite the fact that their club would most likely never have 'made' it in the top division anyway.

The RFL should get tough. Merge, regionalise, dominate. Should be the buzz phrase. Bigger clubs, bigger crowds, bigger TV deals. Another taboo topic over here isn't it, but mergers should be used. Create big SL teams with two or three NL teams to support them, formally as feeder clubs.

If they carry on down the same Mickey Mouse path we are on league will never get any bigger and standards will continue to drop.

Do you happen to know if they've apologised to Toulouse for not explaining things correctly to them 18 months ago ?

Did the Toulouse official misinform the League Express too?

RFL press release in full:

It's easy not to be ed off when it doesn't actually affect you.

Like it or not the Rugby League team means a lot to the people of these towns and they don't enjoy being continually messed around by the governing body in a way that may mean one day they have no club to support or at the very least will be consigned to a league nobody cares about for the rest of eternity.

Quite ridiculous. So they've been lied to and have no chance of getting into Super League then?

Sue the RFL I say. Lets petition Engage and refuse to play whoever gets promoted from the Mickey Mouse Championship.