but in the case of a newco formed by a totally different set of people I can't see any point whatever in being punitive - at the end of the day you want to encourage new people to come forward and 'fining' them for the sins of the old lot seems a strange way of encouraging anyone.

At the end of the day, the deal was done but I'm adamant that better uses could have been found for the money than having a big shareout amongst the SL clubs.

One of the problems I see with London Broncos (apart from the mis-management and under funding) is it has very little identity. People have no doubt mentioned this before but London is a vast place, to simply call something London and expect people from that vast metropolis get behind it is stupid. Some of the boroughs in London are like large towns and people identify with the locality of where they live rather than just "London". If you were to ask someone from Tottenham where they were from they would probably say Tottenham rather than London or before London. A team in London needs to set down some roots and stay long term, take on the local name and build a local fan base. It's difficult to predict, but I'm guessing if they'd have stuck at it in Fulham and were still there now, they would be in a much stronger position. Apart from Football, people really only tend to support the sport teams in their local district, even in London.

The [uimpression[/u I got was that Guilfoyle squeezed running costs for the end of that season from the SL clubs - they were obviously pretty keen to maintain the 'integrity' of the competition, preventing liquidation mid-season. Could well be wrong, it was all a bit murky.

Because licensing was (supposedly) based around business sustainability more than anything else, then what to do with a newco was inherently controversial. Mainly because no contingency was made for it. You might want to encourage people to come in to save Bradford, but go too far and you're discouraging investment in other clubs. Ultimately, that's why licensing had to be binned.

Bradford were unlucky in some respects. Wakefield were able to make a positive out of 'new company, fresh start' PR. And people were maybe distracted by the subsequent implosion of Crusaders. By the time it came to Bradford, Rangers had gone down that path to the lowest level of the SFL and it was seen more as debt-dodging. You want to encourage investment, but for the reputation of the sport you also want to encourage deals with creditors - rescues rather than reboots.

I think that argument is a little circular and perpetuates the misunderstanding of what licensing was intended, and indeed ever could, achieve.

Licensing was never about being better than Bradford, it was about being good enough. Nor was it about stopping clubs going bust, but giving them the best platform for stability and growth.

Now some may argue that Bradford, Crusaders, Wakefield proved that licensing didn’t do those things. This would be quite specious reasoning because there is always a risk of bankruptcy and no system can legislate for poor management. It may very well have been the case that Club A that would have replaced Club B in a P+R situation would have also gone bust, as well as clubs C and D who were overspending to try and avoid relegation and Club E also went bankrupt overspending chasing promotion

In that context whatever the game did to save Bradford couldn’t discourage anyone from investing in no other club, because no other clubs participation in SL was dependent on Bradford dropping out. It was dependent on it whichever club that was being good enough to be in SL.

Besides, once the decision was made that Bradford were staying in SL, whether we gave them less TV money, the same, or even more, didn’t have any real effect on anyone outside SL.

To remove the money from Bradford was a short-sighted, self-interested, counter-productive decision. It made no sense whatsoever to take a club with money problems and cut their funding in an attempt to solve these money problems.

It is telling that the decision to remove the money from Bradford, effected nobody, and benefitted nobody other than Bradford and the 13 clubs who voted for it who all got free additional money. This is where the governance issues arise. It isn’t necessarily a strength, rules or even really competence question. It is where the decision lies and who is fighting which corner. SL clubs should never have been the ones in charge of whether to remove money from one of their member clubs to distribute between themselves. Nor should it be down to the RFL to decide what is done with SL money as a large part of their responsibilities (and some would argue current power base) lay outside SL.

There should be an independent SL board making independent SL decisions. It is all very well Ian Lenegan demanding more autonomy and independence for SL, but independence from whom?

Gargoyle more than squeezed costs, he made the entire coaching staff and office workers redundant for the last couple of months and the majority continued to work , without pay, until the end of the season. Not even sure how you can do that as it's the [iicon_surprised.gif2ye92r1job[/iicon_surprised.gif2ye92r1 which is technically redundant, not the [iicon_surprised.gif2ye92r1person[/i was the limit of what they actually intended to do.

Simple rules needed:-

- The RFL runs the game (like the FA runs soccer)

- within that a Super League organisation is ok (just like there is a Premier League organisation in soccer)

- bring in the 2 x 12 / 3 x 8 structure from 2015 (thereby opening the prospect of clubs rising up through the game to the top level by winning on the field (like soccer) - however unlikely or otherwise a relegation from/promotion to SL will be in any particular season under that structure.

- Go into Administration = 6 points deduction

- Go bust = relegation to the bottom division

- Scrap the salary cap

Absolutely. What they should be is open to debate, but everybody knowing where they stand would be a bonus in itself.

Smokey, I don't have a problem with licensing in principle, didn't expect it to be a silver bullet and don't blame it for all SL's ills.

My issue was that it was poorly executed and tried to dodge the difficult 'what if...?' questions. When one of those came home to roost in the RFL's nest of discretion, they were screwed whatever they chose to do. They could let Bradford die (heartless dastards!), admit that they'd misrepresented licensing (double dealing cads!) or fudge some nonsense of a political compromise together to save the the Bulls and 'move on' from licensing (idiots!)

They went for the third option and in isolation it does look stupid. When you consider the alternatives available at that point, perhaps it was least bad.

Punishment like this are all very well, but without an understanding of the broader reasons why clubs go under it will lead to kicking clubs while they are already down.

It's also worth thinking about the typical lifespan of a medium sized business. My suspicion is that RL clubs are actually pretty stable and long lived when compared with their peers in other industries.

Tweet from Martin Offiah:

MartinChariotsOffiah
Can't believe my @alljoinjack roomy @TherealSeanLong has got a job in London with the Broncos #Result

Interesting.

Am I the only one who would like that translated into English?

Offiah says that Sean Long has apparently got a job with London Broncos.

Good news - seems to be a very highly rated coach and heaven knows the Broncos will need all the coaching they can get this season.

London will get bailed out, they always do.

NAH...You're mistaking us for Bradford

are the RFL buying or taking a lease on the olympic stadium now for London to play in..........thought not.. it doesn't have a BD6 postcode

And London will continue to produce twice as many local players as Hull KA, they always do.

Not entirely true. They probably produce the same amount. However London throw theirs in the starting line up whether they are good enough or not.

Oh I see, Hull KA are producing loads of players, they're just not playing pro-RL. Great.

I think his point was more akin to that London and Rovers were likely producing similar amounts of a similar quality, however London were having to blood those in light of no other options.

Rovers youth record is not great and our overuse of imports has maybe not endeared ourselves to you and certain others who don't like what we have done (I get that). However whether HKR has produced 0 or 50 SL standard players since reaching SL, I can't see how it would change London's current plight.

Hardly worth shouting about London's youth development if you're a KA fan then? Which was my point.

You brought up youth development and used the old HKA as a dig back against someone who (tongue in cheek) said something about London needing a bail out... Someone responded that London's youth development was (as you would say) "hardly worth shouting about" in comparison to ours, which was your point and why we got were we are.

Either way neither are anything special. Back on topic I hope things look up for London and their supporters as it is never nice to have things like this hanging over a club.

The banter on here's gone right down hill recently.

't'as that lad!

In the glory days Id have got pages of fun from KR fans for a cheap shot like that.