It should be like grid iron by adding more teams & not turning teams out, as long as they stay in the rules.(plus the NFL monies from merchandising, TV & ticket sales go into one pot & distributed equaly between all the teams)

Thats '"commie" talk

you really think that owners of clubs are going to be happy to continue investing in their clubs, only to see their only revenue streams given to other businesses?

Leeds were attracting 17k per week, the cut in capacity of the southstand has brought that down to about 15.5k, what would be the motivation for Paul Caddick to spend upwards of £10million building a new southstand at Headingley to take that attendance back to 17k if they were only going to receive a redistributed revenue from 'the pot' of about 8k (which is roughly the round average for an SL game throughout the season), rather than having revenue of an extra 1.5k per game minimum it would end up closer to 100 fans per game for the investment. And it would see Leeds ticket revenue pretty much cut in half?

there is comparatively little away support in Perpignan, they are a viable stand alone club and effect of Toulouse on attendances would be negligible. I would be surprised if in fact it didnt have a positive effect, if anything. Increasing the standing of the game and competition in the publics concious, you would expect a very well attended 'derby' at least once a year, and an increased profile for the games.


as for a credible stand alone French Elite, it depends what you mean as credible and stand alone. As a top tier domestic competition the Elite is already credible and stand alone, as an alternative to super league? well like every other league that isnt a european super league it will never be a European Super League, which is quite useful because we already have one. we called it Super League

Hahahaha I've not been on the leigh forums (or any other except this) since wednesday because i know what to excpect from leigh, but you have cheered me up no end so thank you. In what universe are barrow anywhere near widnes????????????? Widnes have money, structure, youth and securtity and barrow have a tempermental tool of a chairman in crazy des! Barrow are going nowhere fast,deal with it.

For what its worth i'll be 100 percent behind any CC team who makes it i SL i just cant see them having the balls to kick anybody out.

i think the RFL did initially promise them entry into SL next time despite the condition on winning the championship final or NR cup. then the other clubs kicked up a stink

in hindsight maybe they shouldve stayed in the elite, won it and applied from there.

i think the RFL has to guarantee a championship side will always get in at each round of franchise applications to give those clubs an incentive

toulose has over 1 million people, airbus is located there

they will be a far stronger club than les cats and wont harm them at all.

.oh and the L,E and its reporters wernt very happy about it either.

Technically they said they would promote a team from NL1, a compettition that no longer exists. While it causes people to doubt the word of the RFLHQ, they have/do/will change their minds to make the best decision, not stick with a promise they made to be seen as fair. If in 2011 there is no club better than the SL clubs they will not promote.

Clubs have said they would not expand beyond 14 based on the current Sky deal, if French PPV increased it's bid for a SL with TO and Perpignan involved I could see TO promoted, independently of their Bid points or other Championship clubs' licence success. This would see a 15 club SL with a bye round, in no way impossible. The amount of increased TV revenue required by a French broadcaster would be significant from a SL club POV, but negligible compared with PPV budgets and what they pay for Union/Wendyball/Handball in France.

One or two of them might want to start turning up to matches then. Football barely even gets a look in in Toulouse because of rugby union there so I'm afraid any dreams of TO XIII becoming a Super League superpower are exactly that.

You could have said the same about Perpignan and UTC three years before we made it to SL. The difference would be that there are enough French academy players who will be SL grade within the year, twice as fast as our players took to develop. That and the media attention would be massive, not as big as Paris being included, but that is as credible as Wellington Orcas joining the SL.

i know its my lack of knowledge of SLE.but what have the above teams got to do with SLE?

what's happened to the Les Cats crowds? They seem to have dropped dramatically this year.

which is the same situation in peripgnan pre LC entering SL so its a silly argument

coming last

some of the ground closed due to re-development............and coming last

shouldve gone to 16 clubs

hoefully paris and toulose come in together if they can get canal + to pay for their games so they dont get any sky money

this could be independant of the licensing process

Good shout Dally. Would be good for the game in France if Canal + got more involved.

In terms of their structures would Toulouse be ready for SL? I'm talking behind the scenes, finance, junior structure, facilities, corporate.....

From what I've witnessed, no they wouldn't be. They have only got two stands, with much of the ground just being grass banking and they only have a couple of sets of turnstiles. I did witness a junior training session when I was last there but each age group only appeared to have 6/7 players and sadly the standard was way below what you'd see from similar age groups in this country. That will hopefully improve in time but, personally, I wouldn't say they could be considered one of the top 14 clubs in Europe at the moment.

But I'm sure someone will disagree.

Average 2009/2010 Toulouse FC average crowd in Ligue 1 - 19176. Capacity of Stade Ernest Wallon, the RU ground in Toulouse, is 19000. Football has more games and a higher average crowd than rugby union.

Just because union journalists like to make out that RU is more popular than football doesn't make it true...

I was going in Lehmann's terms of seeing how many people wander about in replica shirts etc, and virtually every single bar and hotel has Toulouse RU stuff, but I didn't see any that had Toulouse football stuff - Toulouse RU actually has 4 club shops in the city centre alone, believe it or not - a separate one each for kids, women, mens and general stuff!

sky finance SLE so if they're in SLE they should get sky money.if they can get french tv money as well that would be even better as that would allow them to invest in more youth players and teams which im sure french RL is lacking in at the moment.

Not a chance of Paris Orcas making it. TO could use the XV stadium, which is state owned (IIRC) so stadium is not a problem. I reckon they would have a better first year in SL than Catalans did and would pick up followers faster with a bigger city behind them.
Paris would be a bit like the Crusaders deal, but with no infrastructure and no players. I would love to see it, but doubt it would happen. You would need something really incredible, like SF footing a massive bill over three years to make a go of it.

how many more months before we see several SL chairmen stood on wasteland with a shovel and a hard hat saying 'we're building a new ground...honest!' ??

As things stand I think its Salford, Cas or Wakefield for the chop, to be replaced by Widnes.

if French TV are willing to fund it, i'd like to see Toulouse added as a 15th team, with the magic weekend ditched to make space.