What a joke, no wonder this sport is dying.

Why are you sticking up for that shower of lying, incompetant to55ers, We was told this by our chairman and coach at the LISA meeting and knowing Arthur well, he does not lie and as been invovled with two other SL teams, so he knows what he talking about.
He also didn't just say it was LEIGH he said all of us except WIDNES.
I felt people should know what a set of bent barstewards all of the RFL are.

Basically with this and the other little criteria changes they sneaked in recently, they are in effect saying we want Widnes and then foreign clubs from now on,Leigh, Barrow, Fax, Batley and Fev, in fact of of you can forget about it as if you do make 2500 avage crowds we'll change it to 4000, if you turn over 1 million we'll change it to 2 million, and if you do ,manage these, we'll still turn you down, as you've no youth developement

Disgrace if true.. Leigh (for one) have a thriving amateur set up in the town why cant the pro club harness this talent for the future? What are the RFL scared of? Just defies logic and seems its more and more a SL Team only club.

I support Widnes and think it strange my club can continue on with all others being blocked just doesnt feel right to me

He’s hardly defending them, just asking for evidence that this is actually the case, which in reality isn’t an unreasonable thing to want before passing judgement.

I have contacted the RFL to see if they confirm or deny the rumour - if I hear anything I will post it here.

I think you'll find a lot of leigh fans also want to know a reason.

Seems a bit rich seeing a Widnes fan preaching about how fans shouldn't display a "they don't like us" paranoia.

Please point out where I've been preaching. I have nothing against Leigh whatsoever and plenty against the RFL.

But look at it from our perspective. The youth team is a real trump card for Widnes. Our under 18s are not only in the top league, and made the cut off for the top of the top league, we're unbeaten too against the likes of leeds and saints. This becomes something of a real rallying point for our clubs license bid and all of a sudden Leigh make the claim that the only reason they're not in the same position is that they were not allowed to and you want everyone to take your word for it.

The whole thing doesnt seem to make sense. I am not saying it definitely isn't the case. I'm asking for some evidence or proof and at the very least some reason to it. The RFL have not favoured us in the past, why would they now and why would they stop you from improving your lot by your own means? Are they stopping you from putting together a scholarship indefinitely? Were your plans well thought through and ready to go? What is the justification they are giving? There seems to be no logic towards stopping you and before I start to believe any of this I'm going to need more than chinese whispers I'm afraid as no doubt you would were our positions reversed. This is nothing personal, believe me.

Chris , this nothing personal against Widnes either , you should be rightly commended for the junior set up you have created , nobody is saying you have been favoured over anybody , as I put in the O/P , ' Non SL clubs ' , and as your promotion to SL has been ' stamped ' this week , you are now effectively a SL club

I don't see how such a directive could be issued which allows one club (Widnes) to have a scholarship but doesn't allow other Championship clubs a scholarship. How can such blatant prefferential treatment be justified? Why would other Championship clubs accept it?

They shouldn't but what can the do? anything against the RFL is only going to make them get treated worse than they are.

If a Championship club wanted to run a scholarship, which is both beneficial to that club and the greater good of the game, who would argue against that? It makes no sense, none at all.

In the words of Tina Turner (almost) - Whoa-oh-oh...whaaaaaats sense gotta do, gotta do with it?

Tell me, have you ever seen the RFL and common sense together in the same room?

Sorry if this has been covered, but what's the difference between scholarship and academy, is it just age?

and what's the difference between Scholarship, and the pro club running a "regular" (in any league) junior team?

That is kinda my point too - the RFL certainly aren't going to stop clubs having junior sides affiliated to them.

To be honest, this all sounds like a crock.

It is a RFL directive that pro clubs should avoid encouraging junior ' super clubs ' at amatuer level as this is counter productive to player development

This directive is off course completely ignored by many SL clubs

W1g4n ' encourage ' quality junior players to St pats

Saints do the same to Blackbrook

We used to, think it's Thatto Heath now (might be wrong).

Not strictly what I meant though, although I acknowledge I worded it poorly.

I meant I can't see the RFL wanting to stop any pro / semi-pro club from running junior teams.

:2d2obv69 from running u 18 teams by demanding that the players ' 16/17/18 yr olds ' had to be paid minimum wage for any time spent training, playing or traveling to games , this effectively meant that to run an u 18's team you needed to spend well over 50/60 K a season , they did not however require the u 21's squad to be paid anything , or even a 1 st team player as many of them are on match payments only and basically train for free

I'm still struggling to believe this. As any detective knows, all murders have a motive. I cannot for the life of me see a motive for the RFL, or anyone else, to prevent any club, amateur or professional, from running junior teams of any sort.

If the RFL's pot of cash is shrinking. and they have to cut costs, then I can see how they might say "we're only going to fund scholarships at these clubs". But that's a long way from saying that the rest of the clubs are not allowed to run scholarships.

And in addition to a missing motive, we also have a missing weapon : the RFL has no power at all to prevent any club from running a junior side. It simply can't. If a championship, SL or amateur club decided to run a junior side, then as long as their child protection arrangements and insurance were in order, then the RFL has no ability to prevent them.

I just don't buy this until someone shows me a statement from the RFL that it is true. Someone, somewhere, is exaggerating/misrepresenting/misunderstanding what is happening, in my view.

It's difficult to have a discussion when all we've got is a second-hand report of a second-hand report, but can I ask whether the RFL has said "nobody can run scholarship, except Widnes" or "scholarships need to meet certain minimum standards (education and training, modern apprenticeships?)?" and Leigh have said "we can't afford that"? There's quite a difference.

Same as there's quite a difference between the RFL telling Leigh: "You're not allowed to have an under 18 squad" and saying "any under 18 team at a professional (not an amateur) club has to meet minimum employment law standards and pay the legal minimum wage which has just been introduced for 16-18 year olds (and which is pretty bloody low)" and Leigh deciding "we don't want to / can't afford that".

It's a difference - and what Starbug posted above is different to what he's been saying for the last couple of years

What a load of b0llocks.

Yes and no. As I understand it (and I'm open to.correction) academy players are trainees employed by the club on a part or full time basis at an age range of 16-20. Scholarship players are under 16 players not employed by the club (because they're under age) but on a scholarship, whereby they receive coaching/ training through the club. This is not the same as running a junior team

I have put a similar thing on the Leigh site but I wont be surprised if this is linked to the RFL's new player pathways for junior players.

Players on scholarship will no longer be eligible to attend Regional Camps or be part of Service area squads. The idea behind this is to spread out the quality coaching and development amongst a number of younger players rather than the same lads who are seen as the 'Elite' for their age group.

With this it would seem inevitable therefore that they would need to cut some scholarships down in order to get the number of young players ineligible to attend Regional Camps or Service Area level down.

From a Championship sides point of view the young players still receive quality coaching at regional or service area level (I suppose often in some cases from the same coaches who may have coached them at Scholarship level) and they can then be picked up by clubs at this level in an affiliation with an amateur club at possibly National Youth League level ala the setups that Barrow, Keighley and Gateshead have used. I suppose the biggest incentive for the RFL for this way of working would be that the Championship clubs are bearing no cost.

Which bit ?

Obviously finance is the most likely reason

I dont really understand the highlighted parts , can you re phrase it differently/better , probably just me being thick