So you are saying the RFL are supposed to run all the semi-pro clubs? Come on man.

When your main reliance is on investors and not your actual income, then it's no longer a business as far as I'm concerned, and little more than a charity.

but ultimatley the stadium didn't work for him in the end

In fact the move to the Keepmoat stadium has perhaps shown that moving to rented non controlled stadia just doesn't work outside the top tier

Also that Donny will most likely never be anything more than a competant 2/3 tier club and what is need is for the fans to take more control of the club and for the sights to be set lower than they have been recently

no he's saying that the RFL believe the only way to find clubs in the championship is to have a sugar Daddy.

but when saiid sugar daddy gets bored and walks away the clubs stuff.

the RFL should and needs to help the clubs develop themselves into sustainable entities, standing on their own two feet, paying within their means and supporting the community that supports it.

, the point I am making is the waste of money that is Toulouses inclusion in the Championship , no clubs are benifiting from that inclusion except Toulouse themselves , meanwhile clubs in England will be going bust due to a total lack of understanding by the RFL of what these clubs need to survive and prosper

I've never seen any evidence that the RFL support sugar daddies rather than proper development and I highly doubt that is the case, but if we are assuming that it is then I would agree with your sentiment. However, what obligation do the RFL have to essentially do development work for Championship clubs that they should be doing anyway? At the end of the day, if clubs cannot manage themselves then they should not be playing at any kind of level. What you're saying is basically akin to a struggling Super League club asking the RFL to provide coaches and players because the ones they have are not very good. If the clubs employed competent staff, then there would be no problem in the first place.

The RFL development officer i spoke to about moving bramley up to the pro game said to me that we would need a sugar daddy to fund hte club and they didn't believe in the concept of supporters run clubs.



I'm not saying that. I said

i don't want the RFL to do the work, i'm saying the RFL should help the clubs to do the work themselves. to give a helping hand, to encourage and show them the path.

It's easy running a club at any level.



Nah i'm not saying that.



But to employ competent staff you need money to pay them otherwise they will go elsewhere to someone else who will pay the money.

there is money out there, there are shed load of grants which can be used to help the community. but you need a guiding hand to work through the mine field that's in your way.

The RFL should, imo, have the experience in house to allow you to go to them and get assistance to get the grants, once or twice and then you can go it alone.

I guess that is pretty realistic to be honest. I can't see a club gathering the finances needed to go pro without having someone pumping money in. That's just the way it is. I'm sure the RFL do not prefer this method, but there don't seem to be any alternatives for a new club coming up into the league structure. I would hope it would be different for existing clubs, although to be fair there aren't really too many available income streams for many of the heartland clubs especially, with low crowds and few sponsorship opportunities.

If you have a business plan that can provide a sustainable step up without a financier, then I would be very impressed and I would suggest that you send a blueprint to the RFL for use with future clubs.

That seems pretty reasonable, but other than having some kind of adviser for the semi-pro clubs I'm not sure what else the RFL could do. And to be honest, that would need nothing more than a few phone calls and some paperwork. In fact I'm sure they could probably do it anyway, but then they would be accused of showing favouritism. At the end of the day, imagine if the RFL helped Hull FC or someone to get a government grant and they signed all the best players as a result. If clubs want to improve their finances, then they should do it themselves. And if they do not know how to do that, then they should step aside and get some people running the club who do.

Believe me yes they do , they are actively telling clubs to go out and find individual investors and are willing to finance that search

Which is total madness as it is virtually impossible for any heartland club to get anybody to tip money into a club that has no guarantees that they can move up to SL

They are effectively saying " Go out and find somebody to bankroll your club to stay in the championship " , here is a few quid to help you

Correct the Championships and the clubs in it are actually getting nothing out of the TV deal , the inclusion of a French side and the pea brained idea's coming from the RFL

No what I am saying is the RFL need to take off the rose tinted glasses and stop all the positive ' bull ' they keep coming out with and get down to some serious hard work or they will have a shrinking sub SL sport

I wish i did, believe me. Like i said it's blooming hard work.



Most grants are for specific project and not for running the team, a grant might allow you to introduce kids to the sport, and over time develop players for futre generations but not for signing and funding a team of pro players.



As I said before, to get the right people you have to a) develop them, or b) pay for them, and to pay for them that is out of hte reaches of most clubs.

We as a sport need to develop people to run the game, run the clubs as well as play the game, for the future of the game. otherwise we're screwed. and that has to come from the top downwards.

I'd just like to take this opportunity to mention

BRAMLEY

Because we dont hear much about

[size=200BRAMLEY [/size

Great gesture by Sheffield! Well done. Is there an appeal other fans can contribute to? When York were looking down and out a few years ago RL fans from all over had collections for us which has never been forgotten. I for one would like to make some small contirbution.

Just so long as we get our £3m from the RFL first, Doncaster can wait their turn. All these flatcappers keep saying we're getting £3m from the RFL, so it must be true.

You are the stereotypical muppet flatcapper and I claim my £5!



Translation: "Why can't it be like the good old days when we only had to play the teams next door"?

Find it Strange that our club could cease to exist because it owes debts that an average football league player earns in a week.

£80k does seem a small ammount to put a club into administration, unless the main issue is cashflow i.e. the club simply can't pay its staff, players etc and thus can't continue operating?

ya miserable get!

Thanks. this isn't the place mind.

That does sound like something the clubs should do for themselves. If they don't then it ends up with all the clubs effectively being run by the RFL, b ut with a bit of leeway on some decisions.
RL was born from clubs looking to be profit making and moving away from centralised control of the RFU, you are now suggesting they should relinquish their rights/responsibilities and let the RFL take charge of them.

.

That might have been true at one time but there are very few clubs if any making a profit in todays climate.

Was it?

Do the RFL actually possess that expertise though? The RFL it seems to me is an administrative body with precious little experience of turning a Pound in a fiercely competitive environment.



I think you've just summed up the RFL's expansion strategy in its entirety!





Collaboration my friend, it's the future! It should be entirely feasible for the clubs, which after all are very well aware of the real problems they face, to work together in order to solve them.

A forum for knowledge exchange would cost nothing and yet immediately allow benchmarking of all the various activities clubs perform. Identifying the "best in class" and allowing every club to understand how to perform better and at lower cost.

Geographically adjacent clubs may consider pooling resources, external contracts could be negotiated by the league as opposed to individually by each club. That could result in lower unit prices and far fewer resources (and hence overall cost) involved in the negotiation itself.

What this requires is for the clubs to understand that in helping to make other clubs stronger they are in fact improving the health of the game and utimately the health of every club in it.

What so you'd rather Doncaster live in a fantasy world where they go into administration every other year chasing Super League in the Championship than be a viable Championship 1 side?