The same thing in this context , people do tell lies

no, it isnt, a Cash Deposit is very expensive. A club would be better investing that £10m in a wine cellar than putting in the bank and leaving it their for years. And not having £10m in cash isnt the sign of a bad club. Im not aware of any club in SL that could afford to put £10m in the bank.

Its also prohibitive and pointless to expect a club to have sourced year 6' (as was your idea before, £10m in cash as a bond for 6 years competition) expenditure before year 1s income.

They would also need more than £10m as whilst this money is sat in the bank earning less interest than it is losing in inflation they would need money in the bank for day to day trading.

Whereas a legally enforceable guarantee achieves the commitment we are aiming for and the safeguarding of the clubs competition without wasting huge amounts of money for no real benefit.

Would result in a very messy legal battle which would further damage the sport when it was challenged in court when the person giving it reneged on it

As you well know I suggested this in response to wild claims of Stade Francais's wealth and supposed business acumen by posters on this board , and funnily enough a few others have suggested the same since , not incidently fans of Championship clubs but fans of SL clubs that actually have a bit of common sense and dont walk round with their eyes shut

I wouldnt want any club stupid enough to give hundreds of thousands of pounds to a bank (which is what leaving the money in the bank is) rather than invest it or spend it on youth development. They clearly arent intelligent enough to run an SL club.

I think you would be hard pressed to find more than a few bank accounts in the whole country that has a £10m balance . Any account worth putting that much money in would have a lllooooooooooooonnnnnnggggg withdrawal period meaning the money couldnt be accessed quickly anyway.

It would be a dereliction of duty for any one within the game to come close to asking for something like this.

As for Stade Francais' wealth and business acumen. Well you dont get wealthy by being an idiot, and having business acumen would immediately preclude them from being involved in anything like that.

As for the risk of the guarantee not being honoured, Who the f'ck is really going to give the RFL £10m to keep in a bank, at a cost of thousands, because not only do the RFL not trust their business acumen but also their integrity?

Bloody hell, you act like the game doesnt need to be attractive to investors, like we should take it for granted they are falling over themselves to give us money. Its like you think secretly at night Bill Gates and Roman Abromovich are in a four way fight to death with Warren Buffet and the Duke of Westminster over who gets to throw money at RL

And the way the Celtic fiasco has been done does make it attractive to investors ?

So lets get it right here , nobody is going to give the RFL 10 million cash deposit , and nobody is going to give the RFL a personal guarantee for the equivalent of 10 million , so no argument either way

Problem is , without 10 million you are not going to get a new SL club up and running in this country outside the heartlands , simple as

So what do you suggest ? , more of the failures we have seen over the last 30 years ?

Wanting something is one thing , affording it is another entirely different thing

Nitey nite

widnes crowds will surpass Hull KRs with their stadium after a stable period in SL

toulose will exceed LC. i expect a stable toulose in SL to easily beat a 10,000 crowd and take RL to critical mass

then if we can get london and CC crowds up to 5000 - 6000 well be well on the way. RL isnt that far off gaining real credibility.

we just need to hang on in wales and london and hope as the game grows in the heartlands they benefit as well.

whoosh.

nah, lets expect non heartland clubs who are fighting a hard battle against cashed up rival sports with massive media with clubs that have everything going for them




RLs problems stem from the heartland. if all the "heartland" clubs were strong, expansion would work more easily as the whole game would be stronger

its because of poor clubs like leigh, fax, oldham etc which should be a lot stronger but arent that the game is let down

lets be honest, if you had 11 clubs in SL like wigan (excluding the expansion clubs) how much bigger would RL be as a sport? the same goes for heartland nl1 and 2 teams.

the game has zero solid foundations below SL in its heartland.

off the top of my head, the following are heartland nl1 / 2 teams who have almost gone broke in recent years :

fax, oldham, keighley, rochdale, one of the cumbrian clubs i think, not sure and ive probably missed a few

Only and idiot would suggest that any problems an expansion side has is down to heartland clubs. You are obviously one of them.

Was Oldhams fault Samuels pulled his money out of CC? Was it Leighs fault Quins are not attracting fans in great numbers, was it Featherstones fault Gateshead went bust? And is it down to Wigan that Catalan are a success?

I await your reply where you don't answer with any substance other than more attempts at winding people up.

And let's not forget that heartland clubs are fighting the same battle against rival sports.



Thank you. At last we are getting somewhere.



There may be some element of truth in this although I don't really see how those clubs have more than a minimal impact on RL as a whole. The SL clubs have far more effect on RL and the sport will either thrive or stagnate along with the fortunes of SL, not depending on how well Leigh, Fax or Oldham do.



Correct, so perhaps we can move beyond the tired old "they've had 100 years" argument and suggest how heartland clubs and consequently RL as a whole can propsper.



And yet it's a fair bet that in 20 years RL will still be played in Leigh, Halifax and Oldham. Without a paradigm shift in the development of the sport I could not say the same for Crusaders or any other club that gets introduced to SL in the same fashion.

the fact they were quickly given the opportunity would make it more attractive, hence the fact someone else wanted to invest.

The difficulties they and other clubs face is obviously not a plus point
Why wouldnt they guarantee their involvement for the period of their license with a minimum salary spend?

which is massively different from having £10m sat in the bank

i suggest (again) that we have a legally enforceable guarantee, guaranteeing a club competes for the length of its license with a minimum salary spend

hey im all up for a debate on how to make heartland clubs stronger

that some clubs have done it means others can. the elimination of P&R doesnt take away the ability of clubs to improve. indeed by removing automatic promotion teams will be more long term focused on the important things

<sigh>
<shakes head>

well, if heartland clubs were stronger then :

1. RL would have more media
2. RL would get more sponsors, including expansion clubs
3. away crowds would be more
4. TV deals would be larger meaning more money for clubs and more RFL reserves to fund expansion projects

to put it simply = stronger heartland = stronger game = easier to expand

if clubs like oldham, rochdale and fax are struggling, what chance RL in a foreign area with establishment sports and media being hostile.

One of the reasons why i argued that with the next tv deal the lower league clubs should recieve some funding (only a small percentage compared to sl clubs, say 70k for the championship and 30k for c1), this would allow an increase in playing standards, youth development and advertising and would result in a stronger heartland, with bigger crowds, more players developed and a better image for rl.

There is only one way this is going to go.

Virtually all the existing Crusaders supporters will switch to supporting the new South Wales club.

The new South Wales club will be competitive both on and off the field, over a period of a few years and, hopefully do what we should have been doing with the Crusaders, giving them a decent amount of time to build up a sound footing for a tilt at Super League for maybe 2015 or 2018.

The people of Wrexham, by and large, have no interest in rugby of either code so quite why anyone thinks that they will get crowds even anything like what is needed to survive, I don't know.

The Crusaders won't even be around to receive a licence for 2012. They will be dead by the end of the forthcoming season.

there already is a paying TV deal for NL1/2 clubs which is tied to certain criteria.

its a start. clearly down the track a higher TV deal will help a lot.

and crowds should grow too as well.

NL1 heartland clubs should be averaging at least 4000 - 5000 fans.

You've got to hand it to us.

If nothing else we get people talking and posting.

If your talking about the offer to pay a fulltime exec and marketing man then that isnt from the tv money, and is rarely used due to the fact that only clubs that can afford to pay those people anyway can take the chance of employing such people as the rfl might not decide to pay them.

The championships recieve no money from central funds that can be used towards youth development, player strength or advertising.

how far from another SL team do you have to be to get the point?

thats not what ive read at all.

i read that there is a small paying TV contract for lower level clubs provided its spent on certain things. i guess the marketing manager / fulltime exec are those things.

your post seems to say some clubs wont do it because the RFL might say no. surely they can pick up a phone or send of an email first ?

if heartland clubs cant have proper marketing people or a fulltime exec they deserve their current fate dont they.

im interested in these clubs that can actually go somewhere. the rest are just leeches.

It would seem that you read wrong then.

No you can only apply for those funds if you already have the personel in place, if the rfl decide then not to stump up the cash (which they can do, and as i understand it there isnt money to do this for every club anyway so even if all clubs applied not all clubs would get it), the club is then to stuck with an employee who they may not be able to afford to pay.

Clubs can have 'proper' exec's and marketing people without them being fulltime, in some cases employing these people on a fulltime basis does not benefit the club much but increases the wage bill, which isnt a very efficient use of the sports limited resources.

All clubs can 'go somewhere' given the right support, unfortunatly central support for the championship is limited to say the least, some clubs struggle without this support, but a number of sl clubs would struggle without central support such as tv monies.

20 miles IIRC?

Why ?

You really are commenting on things you havent a clue about

But anyway , can you help me on this

How has the Melbourne Storm been financed ?

And at what cost financially ?

If you think that, why did you state this earlier?



Make your mind up.