Yes that would be great. The Championship may be on its way to be this 2nd tier. For the moment there is not enough money there to include more foreign teams in Championship. If SL expands and cover both the English and French markets, then there will be money for this 2nd European tier who would become interesting in both countries if promotion to SL depends on success in Championship. Orange Sport has already broadcasted 5 matches of Toulouse last season. If SL becomes fully European and some other French teams get into this second tier, French TV will pay for TV rights there as well.

As you say, P&R would give more chance to heartland clubs as well. With 3 clubs in SL, there would not be any reason to expand in France by licencing. In addition, with a real second tier, any expansion in other places could be made by licencing in the second tier.

Depends on your definition of nobody, if your saying not as many people are bothered as in the heartlands thats right, if you mean literally nobody, then your wrong. There may only be a few thousand per country, but its a start and something we can build on.

As a non heartlands supporter I can confirm that not too many people care about RL as opposed to RU. But, they are also the people that are now complaining about how the laws of their game have made it boring.

If, and it is a big if RL can get the right exposure it could gains some ground.

It is the better game but people need to know that.

I'm interested and enough people to form at least a 4-6 team league in NI are intersted. Development officers have been appointed so more people will come to the game. It's not easy when a country has next to no history in the game. France has RL history and they have the potential to reach heights that would be great for league.

The club game being leagues strength is the way for things to reach those heights. We need to see French players playing for other clubs in SL. There are loads of New zealanders in the NRL now and we need a similar situation with French players in SL. I would sure rather see a few French players at a club instead of a lot of Aussies and kiwis.

How's a team based in Paris going to be succesful this time around when it wasn't the first time around?

Fine except when you then get an inbalance between the 2 divisions and the 2 country,s , what happens if say all the French clubs get relegated to SL 2 ? , or conversely you end up with no British clubs in SL 1 ?

Because this time it involves people with money and good proven business sense , or so we have been told

Ah that makes it a guarenteed success then.



Feels like selling snow to the eskimos to me. I'd rather we had a cumbrian team in SL and maybe 2nd French team in RL heartland in the south.

So not enough then

So because there are not tens of thousand ready made fans, it's pointless even attempting to develop a region? Where do you think all these fans would come from?

Good point, well I guess the RFL/FRL would cross this bridge if they come to it, and find some ad hoc solution like going back to franchising. Fortunately it is a bit (hopefully) unlikely that, after some years of licencing 3 French teams, they'd all be relegated to 2nd tier without any new French promotion (the possibility of all English sides being relagated is a bit too theoretical for me to consider it over my lifetime).

The P&R could work within boundaries of non critical proportions of teams from different countries, with the RFL/FRL acting ad hoc if a country tends to get expelled from the competition. I'd prefer P&R because the heartland teams would still have a chance to make it to SL thanks to their on pitch results and their fate would not fully depend on some institutional decisions. Basically the dream of reaching SL could once again be shared by all, instead of the minority who have the right stadium/location etc... Currently the Championship is a bit weird, you have some teams there who have good chances to make it to SL even if they don't win it, and some others who have no chances to make it even if they win it. I may be a bit of a traditionalist, but I like the principle of P&R.

Not enough to convince somebody to stump up several million pounds over 10 years to get one going , now if I was in charge of the RFL , there would already be semi pro RL teams in Wales , Scotland and possibly Ireland , but i'm not , so there arent

Sacre Bleu ! mon ami

Madam giullotine for you

Lol, that is definitely a dangerous forum!

More info on the budget of French clubs. It is said (rumors on French forum) that the SF would target a 1 million euro budget for next year.

This is to be compared with the budgets of other French teams in euros (source goldrugby.com)

Lezignan: 700,000
Pia: 600,000
Carcassonne: 550,000
Avignon: 450,000
Limoux: 450,000
St Gaudens: 350,000
Villeneuve: 350,000
Carpentras: 330,000
UTC: 270,000

With those sorts of budgets the teams should be a hell of a lot better than they are.
They should have better players in the leagues than they do

I am not sure the budget definition is restricted to the wage bill.

The fact is also that they have indeed good players in French Elite (as you could see in the Four Nations). Toulouse is not able to afford all the best French players at the moment with a Championship budget because French clubs are able to pay their best players quite well.

It is also something to keep in mind when we talk of the pool of French players for 3 teams in SL. There is more talent in France that what is seen in the Dragons and Toulouse. A Paris team with a big budget would be able to get all the best players in the French Championship.

For what? to sustain a sl side instantly, perhaps not, to build from and turn into a much larger figure that can sustain much more? yes there is.

I've answered you once , so i'll repeat myself

Actually that wasnt an answer you gave to me.

So you agree with my point now then

I do agree that setting clubs up at semi pro level first is the way to go yes, i would aim to be creating a new team every franchise period, the sport needs more semi pro and pro teams, whether they be bramley or scotland or nottingham. To make this possible though we are going to need sky money for the lower tier in order to make it a more attractive proposition to investors.

They're called ' central funds '

We dont need more F/T teams , we cannot support the ones we already have and the cost is too great , P/T semi pro teams however cost a lot less to set up and the risk is much less , and we do need more of them , another 6/8 by my reckoning

I'm pretty confident that one of those teams you mention will be in the Champ 1 sooner rather than later...

In the long term i would disagree, with a small proportion of the sky money given to the lower leagues we should eventually hope to see a fulltime championship, with championship 1 being semi pro, that might take ten years but it should be something we are aiming to do.