It'll never happen. It's too close to the start of the new season and would effectively rule out things like off-season surgery for international players and is slap bang in the middle of pre-season for clubs.

I'm not amazed. For summer sports it's in their off-season, for winter sports they generally use Xmas for their domestic schedules.

There's no reason not to have a few marketed rounds though, I especially like the Heritage round and I'm sure there are a couple of other concepts that could work.

Anything international requires the NRL, they are not well known for their burning interest in the international scene.

Having read through smokeys links, yes fine, have gimmick rounds, but seriously, that will save the sport and the clubs in it ?



Meaningful competitive games is what is needed, not players using pink balls, half of the stuff is just playing matches on holidays like Xmas,new year and easter

Sorry smokey I am dissapointed if thats the best you've got

No half the stuff isnt just playing matches on holidays. It is all about promoting the game and using different tactics to do it, using a pink ball wont save the game, but taking the time and effort to build a positive image of the game, using things like charities and using it to actually get people to the game will.

Meaningful competitive matches are only meaningful if people are watching

Try reading what i put again rather than being willfully stupid.

To be fair, there are times when you could be accused of being the same

I like the idea of a heritage round personally. I think it's worth a try, a lot of people moan that RL is too keen to break away from it's tradition so anything that celebtrates RL's history is a good thing IMO. Its not a radical change but its a pretty simple change that can only have a positive impact IMO.

Smokey is tinkering with the colour of the icing on the bun.

The rest of us are working towards a new structure for RL in this country that will allow the whole game to grow.

Smokey says the standard of marketing in RL is rubbish. Well what do you expect when there is a salary cap and no 1-up, 1-down promotion and relegation between the leagues? ...

Take for example, the marketing director at Workington. How thankless is his task with the current closed shop? No chance of promotion to the top division, restriction on how much the club can spend (no matter how much sponsorship he might otherwise be able to bring in). Really, what has he got to market? The current structure of RL is strangling what should be a hotbed area to death. It's criminal when you think of Workington players that have contributed to the succees of GB in past. Workington is just one example. The current closed shop/no promotion-relegation, cap on spending etc is killing the game from its roots and I don't support it.

Contrast with how Soccer in this country is organised. Another example: Crawley Town. Non-league a couple of years ago. Then they get a financial backer with money, nouse and a dream to live (& money to spend). Crawley could now be just two seasons away from the Premier League. On the way, all their opponents benefits from hugely increased crowds when Crawley play away. What's the dfference with how RL is currently being run? Soccer has automatic promotion and relegation & no cap on spending (but with serious penalties if clubs go bust).

How could it be expected that anybody would set-up or invest in a business in any indusrty where some officials impose a cap on how much you can spend? It's just nonsense and central planning gone mad.

If a club can get it's income up to say £10 million per annum, there should be no problem with them spending £10 million per annum without artificially imposed limits on spending at all. The game as a whole needs to maximise it's total income - not shoot itself in the foot.

That my friend pretty much hits the nail on the head



No doubt the franchise fairies will be along soon to say you are talking nonsense and the game is in great shape and clubs have 3 years to bring in sponsorship and pull in crowds and turn over £3 million in income in a league were the fans have given up the sport because of the hoops there local clubs as to jump through whilst super league continues to ignore rules they brought in.

Awaits links to be posted proving how over sports thrive doing this nonsense

Sorry to burst your bubble but there IS a cap in the Football League. It's basically 65% of income on players wages.
It's an attempt to stem the tide of clubs going bust in the national sport by overreaching themselves in this flawless promotion and relegation system they have.
Apposite as well that you chose Crawley Town as your example. Sugar daddies are not the future of sport, and when the guy at Crawley gets bored, ill or dies, the whole thing will come crashing around their ears.
Ask the good people who supported Rushden and Diamonds about their long term success - rising from 100 years of the non League status these towns deserved, to crash and burn in a decade, on the whim of one man.

Quote ="Wooden Stand"Smokey is tinkering with the colour of the icing on the bun. The rest of us are working towards a new structure for RL in this country that will allow the whole game to grow.'" We have a structure which allows the game to grow right now. Going back to the structure we had when the game was at its lowest ebb would be a moronic backward step Quote Smokey says the standard of marketing in RL is rubbish. Well what do you expect when there is a salary cap and no 1-up, 1-down promotion and relegation between the leagues? ...'" I would expect the marketing of the game has f’ck all to do with 1up 1 down P+R nonsense nor the salary cap. Quote Take for example, the marketing director at Workington. How thankless is his task with the current closed shop? No chance of promotion to the top division, restriction on how much the club can spend (no matter how much sponsorship he might otherwise be able to bring in). Really, what has he got to market? The current structure of RL is strangling what should be a hotbed area to death. It's criminal when you think of Workington players that have contributed to the succees of GB in past. Workington is just one example. The current closed shop/no promotion-relegation, cap on spending etc is killing the game from its roots and I don't support it.'" If Workingtons marketing manager has no other ideas than ‘come watch workington, we might at some point be in a different league with different players and we also might now’ then he is poor at his job and I have no sympathy for him. Quote Contrast with how Soccer in this country is organised. Another example: Crawley Town. Non-league a couple of years ago. Then they get a financial backer with money, nouse and a dream to live (& money to spend). Crawley could now be just two seasons away from the Premier League. On the way, all their opponents benefits from hugely increased crowds when Crawley play away. What's the dfference with how RL is currently being run? Soccer has automatic promotion and relegation & no cap on spending (but with serious penalties if clubs go bust).'" Just like Rushden and Diamonds, That worked out well for everyone didnt it www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/13738222 Quote How could it be expected that anybody would set-up or invest in a business in any indusrty where some officials impose a cap on how much you can spend? It's just nonsense and central planning gone mad.'" Who do you think is more in favour of the Salary Cap? The players or the owners? Quote If a club can get it's income up to say £10 million per annum, there should be no problem with them spending £10 million per annum without artificially imposed limits on spending at all. The game as a whole needs to maximise it's total income - not shoot itself in the foot.'" You want a club turning over £10m to be able to spend £10m on wages?

Quote ="Wooden Stand"Smokey is tinkering with the colour of the icing on the bun. The rest of us are working towards a new structure for RL in this country that will allow the whole game to grow.'" We have a structure which allows the game to grow right now. Going back to the structure we had when the game was at its lowest ebb would be a moronic backward step Quote Smokey says the standard of marketing in RL is rubbish. Well what do you expect when there is a salary cap and no 1-up, 1-down promotion and relegation between the leagues? ...'" I would expect the marketing of the game has f’ck all to do with 1up 1 down P+R nonsense nor the salary cap. Quote Take for example, the marketing director at Workington. How thankless is his task with the current closed shop? No chance of promotion to the top division, restriction on how much the club can spend (no matter how much sponsorship he might otherwise be able to bring in). Really, what has he got to market? The current structure of RL is strangling what should be a hotbed area to death. It's criminal when you think of Workington players that have contributed to the succees of GB in past. Workington is just one example. The current closed shop/no promotion-relegation, cap on spending etc is killing the game from its roots and I don't support it.'" If Workingtons marketing manager has no other ideas than ‘come watch workington, we might at some point be in a different league with different players and we also might now’ then he is poor at his job and I have no sympathy for him. Quote Contrast with how Soccer in this country is organised. Another example: Crawley Town. Non-league a couple of years ago. Then they get a financial backer with money, nouse and a dream to live (& money to spend). Crawley could now be just two seasons away from the Premier League. On the way, all their opponents benefits from hugely increased crowds when Crawley play away. What's the dfference with how RL is currently being run? Soccer has automatic promotion and relegation & no cap on spending (but with serious penalties if clubs go bust).'" Just like Rushden and Diamonds, That worked out well for everyone didnt it www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/13738222 Quote How could it be expected that anybody would set-up or invest in a business in any indusrty where some officials impose a cap on how much you can spend? It's just nonsense and central planning gone mad.'" Who do you think is more in favour of the Salary Cap? The players or the owners? Quote If a club can get it's income up to say £10 million per annum, there should be no problem with them spending £10 million per annum without artificially imposed limits on spending at all. The game as a whole needs to maximise it's total income - not shoot itself in the foot.'" You want a club turning over £10m to be able to spend £10m on wages?

I think you'll find my post said "If a club can get it's income up to say £10 million per annum, there should be no problem with them spending £10 million per annum". That is what I believe. If a Club's income is £10 million there should be no problem with it spending £10 million as it wishes. No need for officials to set limits on spending of any sort whether that be on salaries or anything else. The discipline should simply come from severe penalties if a club fails financially - 6 poiint deduction if you go into Administration and relegation to the bottom league if you go bust.

Back to Soccer. I don't like officials imposing spending caps on anything. If you must have one, a rule like the one you quote soccer has (max 65% of revenue to be spent on players' remuneration) then that is nearer the mark. It's about the max directors of any club would spend on players wages anyway if they want to avoid financial problems. But, as I say, I don't like it - it all has to be administered for a start and then everybody starts focussing on how to get round it rather than on how to grow a successful sports club.

Soccer again. I wonder if Leeds United supporters would support a structure in their game that
- limited their spending (even if taken over by say a mega rich Bahraini a la Man City/Abu Dhabi) and
- scrapped promotion?

There is a clear and obvious problem.


You are setting a limit, you are just doing it in a terrible way. You are giving a limit it is just a vague and changeable one which is only relevant in hindsight. The only difference between a salary cap and what you are proposing, is that a salary cap is pro-active and your idea is reactive and frankly quite pointless. If a club goes bust the people who managed to make it go bust are no longer there, by virtue of it going bust they are out on their ear, a 6 point penalty after the event makes no difference to them at all. It is just screaming in the wind so you can pretend you are actually doing something when in reality you arent doing anything of use.
Then that is a limit, you aren’t even holding to your ‘principle’ in the same post. A Percentage limit would simply entrench Leeds position as champions. From memory they turnover £2 or £3m more than any other club. A 65% of turnover cap would mean Leeds could pay £1.95m more in wages than anyone else. 65% of Leeds turnover is about £7.5m, this is two or three times more than the entire turnover of some clubs. It would be about 4 NRL squads worth of wages. I would be happy to see all the best players in the world playing for Leeds, we would win every game by 20-30 points, It would be the best rugby squad ever put together. It would also take us from making about £500k a year to losing about £4m a year. We would go bust pretty quickly.
Having seen how much relegation and uncertainty around it very nearly destroyed the club and has made its return infinitely harder I very much wish P+R had been removed from football. We had to sell our stadium, mortgage and slowly dismantle one of the best youth development programmes in Europe. As a club, we would be infinitely better off buying back the stadium, rebuilding Thorpe arch and Wilko’s development systems, and moving back up when that is place than spending millions on players hoping we can put a run together and get up.

That's the most bizarre argument yet - with RL's franchising and salary cap rules, Leeds Utd would have stayed in the Premiership and remained in good financial health all along.

The pont about P/R not helping SL is of course correct, nobody wants their team to be relegated but, it certainly would provide interest in the CC and give those clubs something to strive for.
Yes, P/R in itself brings some problems to the table, not leasst the effect on the relegated club but, also the difficulty in the promoted club being strong enough to compete in the top flight.

The big question moving forward is the inclusion of any "expansion" clubs in the top flight, which would likely necessitate one or more current SL clubs being "relegated" and this to the supporters of those "at risk" clubs is unpalatable.

The brave thing to do, would be for the RFL to say that SL will be a certain number of clubs in 5 years time and will include an addiitional French team plus a team from Wales (which is the way that things seem to be heading)
The difficulty then is to decide who and how any club(s) will be removed from the top flight.
Unfortunately, there is no method of doing this without upsetting folk and the traditionalists will of course cry foul.

If a club was ready to add to the league we could expand it.

That would be my thought as well but, there seem to be too many seeking a cut in the number of SL clubs and no sensible way to promote teams that prosper in the CC.

I don’t think that anyone is arguing in principle that we cant have 14 or more teams. I think they are arguing we don’t have the money or players right now for it. I have some sympathy with that viewpoint but would always argue we will always have a period of time where the money and players are catching up. So there may not be a space for them right now, but in a few years it is likely there will be.

I dont quite understand what you are saying.
Do you mean that there are not enough players to support a 14 team SL now or, that there wont be enough players any time soon to support the likely "expansion" teams that many of us expect to join SL in the medium term ?

Make the teams produce there own, that is what franchising was about, but how many teams bring players from the academy to the first team i don't think you will find many, bringing youth through, it should be a priority
we have no relegation at the moment so why are they scared to promote from with in, its pathetic when you see all the money spent abroad and all the young talent gets sent out on duel reg, and most don't come back.

Because the players aren't ready, that's why they're not promoted.

Too many people seem to think you just need to blood a few youngsters for them to be good. Playing youngsters that aren't ready wont improve them or the league.

So how then?

How about putting 20 of them out on season long loans to a 10 team , full time, highly competitive, very intense competition with P and R at both ends of it, then a ' draft ' system at the end of every year with fixed prices for any players not wanted by their original club?

Really even loosing all those games. Now thats crazy. The salary cap was a good idea when it came out and a club that brings in a certain amount of money should be able to spend a percentage of it in the perfect cap regime. Just putting a cap where certain clubs will struggle with it is bonkers. Every club should only be allowed to spend what they can afford and nothing more. Just like the RFL said it would be.

How do you now if a payer is ready or not, is it because the coach says so, i have seen some very good talent not given the chance and never see Super League rugby, they end up playing in the Championship, or totally disperse from the game its pathetic, , clubs pay massive amounts of money on so called big named Aus & NZ players, they have a crap season and all the coaches say is there just settling in, if ALL the clubs had to have a set number of there academy players in the first team squad what do you loose, if 50% of the academy players brought through to SL made the grade it would be worth it, its only the same as doing what some clubs do, by flooding the team with foreigner's and hoping that there good enough, we have had years of Super League now so how long have academy players got to wait before there given a chance to prove there ready, we were supposed to be brining youth through and not relying on over paid foreigner's . But for some clubs its always easier to buy, rather than produce there hone players

Simple, licencing would take away the ' Fear ' factor we were told, coaches and BOD s would not need to chase Aussies and Kiwi s, we were told , and as we non believers said ' bollox', coaches wont risk their jobs and club officials wouldnt risk the wrath of their fans to benifit the game, so who was right?

Its human nature, look after yourself, sod the rest, cheat if you have to, anything as long as you win, be that salary cap fiddles, dodgy visa s, off shore payments, anything as long as you get the results, even cheat on the pitch if you have to

Some supporter's will just say were is the proof, there the ones with blinkers on, all the teams have got the stability of three years so why wont they just do what is best for the game, some players don't get enough field time, instead of having the squad of 25 they have more than they can quota for so the talent stays at the top 4 & 5 clubs if they get Cort breaking the salary cap they should loose funding, if they have more players than they can fit under the cap they need to be allocated to other clubs, & not duel reg