Mate i'm with you, until the money starts to come in a league restructure won't be any benefit, the same clubs will compete for trophies the same clubs will yo yo between leagues and the same clubs will get a battering.

No major company wants to touch RL in this country and until that changes we only really have sky and i can't see them wanting to fund every semi pro club in existence.

Call me a cynic but, this is probably a plan to get all the clubs to agree the principal of 2 leagues x 12, based on additional funding and then at some point, Big Nige will tell us that funding wasn't available, so we have to go with a 12 team SL

Weirdly, compared to what is being proposed. That is the preferable option.

Good idea? bad idea? who knows? what I want to know is who put this in the public domain. I understand that the proposals were put to a meeting of SL clubs (IN CONFIDENCE) to look at various ways to improve the game at all levels. Instead some one has run to the press shooting their big mouths off & we are left with only a vauge idea of what was actualy disscussed & what they (SL clubs) actualy think about it. No wonder the RFL are always copping flack every time they try to open discussions to advance the game some idiot shoots their mouth off & creates a lot of unwanted fuss before anthing has been decided. If these ideas were disscused in private & rejected as daft then no harm done, but now every detractor of the game can have a field day with it. It is no way to run a sport.

Exactly. It's easy to talk down an idea. Not many are coming up with solutions though. There's a reason why not everyone gets to be in the decision making process.

Personally think the idea has plenty of merit, the crucial factor which no one knows is how tv money would be distributed. For it to work the bigger stronger clubs would have to take less.

Not sure if a simple solution might be better e.g. with 2 leagues of 10, one up one down and top five play offs on the old Aussie system (by far the best system for a progressive reward on where you finish in the table). For this to work again the crucial factor is more even distribution of monies, with salary caps in the 2nd tier at least half of the top tier.

What is undoubtedly needed is a bridge between lower super league and the rest of the game. Not just in terms of promotion/relegation but also finance and salary cap. It may well be that these leaked ideas are a useful starting point for addressing that.

Because there isnt 'a solution' is probably the reason why no-one is coming up with one.

This particular idea is silly, and doesnt actually address any of our real issues. Some smaller clubs may think it good for them, some of the people we have seen moaning about the lack of P+R etc may think this is what they want. In reality it will just further entrench the positions of the big clubs as big clubs and small clubs and small clubs. It will widen the gap between the haves and have nots.

We dont need 'a solution' we need to address each problem we have and stop looking for that one thing which will solve everything,.

Right now the game is Leeds in 2006, nobody looking to get down and do the grunt work, nobody looking to keep bending the line and keep the ball going forward, just a lot of people looking for a hollywood play everytime.

In recent months we have had various SL chairman stating that they cant afford to fund clubs at current levels, and that they would have to make cuts.

This proposed structure therefore looks to me like a move back to part time professionalism for a number of the current SL clubs.

What is my rationale for this.
The bottom four clubs will lose vast amounts of revenue by no longer getting visits from the big boys like Leeds, Warrington, Saints and Wigan. This will heavily reduce not only gate income, but also sponsorship and corporate income. They will therefore be forced to reduce their outgoings significantly. The logical conclusion for this is that they will go part time professional and have only a couple of "star" full time pros. Failure to plan for this will result in insolvency.
These "Zombie" SL clubs will however nominally retain their SL status, and at the same time be confident of having a significant funding advantage over the championship clubs. Thereby guaranteeing they still get to feast at the SL funding banquet, while paying reduced rates for the privilege, in the form of a vastly reduced wage bill.
The chairmen of these Zombie SL clubs will regale themselves in their "emperors new clothes" of SL status.

From the fans point of view, we are likely to therefore see an increasing divide between the haves eg the full time top 8 SL sides, the "benefit scroungers" of the bottom 4 SL sides, and the "third world" clubs within the championship.

The SUPER8 are likely to pull away very quickly from the rest, the better quality players at the "zombie" SL clubs will gravitate to the SL clubs were they believe their full time employment will be more secure, and were they will have the potential of interesting NRL scouts.
I suspect the benefit scroungers will become the home of "failed" young players from the SUPER8 sides, looking to relaunch their SL careers, alongside some experienced part timers.
The Third world championship clubs will stay the same. Their small band of fans will continue to request that the RFL tail wags the dog, while suffering from sustained delusions of grandeur.

The only thing that concerns me is that you don't really gain much by winning SL2 or SL3. There needs to be more of an aim IMO. Here's a suggestion (that I doubt will go down well but here goes!)...

The play-offs for the 3 tiers are:

SL Championship play-offs - Top 5 SL1 + Top of SL2 in a 6-team play-off.

SL top-tier promotion - 1st-3rd in SL2 + play-off winner.
SL top-tier promotion play-offs - 4th-8th in SL2 + 1st-3rd in SL3 in a 8-team play-off.

Means that everyone has something to play for throughout the season in all tiers, fecking up in the first 11 games doesn't end your season, and not only is there a promotion dream for the second tier, but a SLGF dream!

Isn't addressing each problem "a solution"?

I don't know why you've perceived me to have the opinion that there is some magical solution that will fix everything. I'm of the opinion that it's pointless dismissing something or whinging about something constantly if you don't offer an alternative solution. It's not progressive, it's hindering.

It would be a solution to an individual problem, not a solution to all the problems the game faces.


This is being presented as a 'solution'. Im saying it isnt a solution to any of the problems the game faces. The reason there hasnt been an alternative offered is, as i said, because there isnt one. This is a solution to an invented problem. There isnt any point in offering an alternative because the alternative will still be a solution to an invented problem.

If what they are trying to achieve by this is to concentrate more money and power to the big teams at the top. Then it is a very good solution. If this is a slow-burning plan with the end aim being in about 10 years we will have 8-10 really, really strong clubs and a semi-pro feeder pyramid underneath, its probably a pretty decent plan.

if its a plan to address the problems we as a game face of not enough money throughout the game, not a big enough or good enough player pool, the struggle to expand, not a high enough visibility for the game, not enough sponsor or corporate interest, not enough people going through the turnstyles, i.e the actual problems the game faces, then it isnt any kind of solution at all. It doesnt address those issues at all.

btw, i think your idea above is much closer to something workable. If slightly different I would go 2 leagues of 10, SLA and SLB

SL A top 10 clubs, play each other twice, once home, once away = 18 games
SL B second 10 clubs, play each other twice, once home, once away = 18 games

SL A teams play SL B teams once, 4 home games, 4 away games 1 on the road game, 1 Magic Weekend = 10 games.

top 4 from SL A go into a top 6 play-offs with top 2 from SL B. Bottom 4 from SL A relegated, top 4 from SL B promoted.

Still wouldnt address any of the problems the game faces though. Would just move 6 clubs who arent capable of being SL clubs in to SL to join the two or three others already there.

Personally, I want to see an ultra-competitive Superleague, where every game is a 0-0 draw, and every teams shares the SL title. That would be ace.

Seriously, what is this obsession amongst some fans whereby every single team has to be in with a shout of winning the grand final for the league to be any good?

" - we need to design for what we need. When we're desperately trying to raise the profile of RL and a club that can afford a high profile player is barred from signing them, something 'aint right. If we already had a massive profile we might be in a different position. But we're not.

Trying to 'equalize competition' is largely futile. Control squad sizes, that's fine, but then hands off. Any one season, or indeed any five or so year period is bound to see dominance by a small number of clubs. What's needed for smaller clubs is a structure that provides hope at least, that one day, with growth and backers, etc there's a pathway to the top table.

No one has suggested there is one solution to all the games problems. I don't see what your point is?


That's your opinion that it isn't a solution to any problems. That doesn't mean the problems are invented.
And of course there's an alternative. The alternative is to keep things the same. But the majority of people that are complaining about the way things are now are also complaining about the alternatives. That's why I say they offer "no solutions". What do they actually want?!


Why does it concentrate more money at the top anymore than now? Isn't the idea that with two less teams the extra money is spread out to the other clubs more?

And how can you say for sure it wouldn't address any of those problems?
Wouldn't more people come through the turnstyles to watch the big clubs competing against each other? Or for promotion places? Or to avoid relegation, etc?


I think it was Martyn Sadler in the League Express that mentioned that the SL must have 12 clubs at least as part of the agreement with Sky.

Sadly the game does not have enough money in it for two ten team full time competitions so we can not have P&R as teams coming up will be too weak and teams going down will be combated on and off the field.

Finding a way to fund 14 ft clubs in SL and enough money in lower divisions to be sustainable as part time development clubs is the priority for the RFL.

I think its more fundamental than this.
Step 1, is for the game to decide where it wants to be in 5 years time and then 10 years time and then set about achieving its aims.

At the moment everyone wants a miracle cure that will give us 10 or 12 equally competitive teams in the top flight, plus a second tier capable of producing teams that can advance to the top flight.
For this to happen, the game has to fund the second tier at a similar level to the top flight.

The stumbling block is our inability as a sport to be able to attract funding/ sponsorship at a sufficient level.

Is it time to bite the bullet and move to a full on franchise system and take away the prospect of promotion (and relegation) altogether and it would allow the future addition of any club, that could prove itself worthy of a franchise.

The starting point could be either the current 14 SL clubs, or reset the benchmark of exactly what a SL club should be.

So why is it being presented now then? Surely we should be focusing our priorities on doing the things which will actually address the problems we have rather than spending time and effort of undertaking a major structural change which wouldnt address our problems.

That is true. But I didnt say that the problems were invented because this isnt a solution for them. I said they were invented because they are.
That isnt an alternative solution. Keeping this as they are isnt an alternative solution to this proposal because this proposal isnt a solution to the problems caused by the status quo.

Because the big clubs will play each other more, getting higher attendances, higher visibility, more corporates, better sponsorship etc etc etc. They will also play the other teams less, giving them lower attedances, lower visibility, etc etc etc, that evens itself with the clubs who are relegated getting less doesnt it. It will bring down a few teams and up few teams to some mid-point between the championship and SL. The big clubs will continue to grow. The small clubs will shrink.

Because it wont. Because it doesnt address them. Because as I explained before (and you were arguing nobody had suggested it would address these problems). It isnt a solution to these problems. Each of these problems has their own individual solution.
they would as we have seen, they didnt. Every team which was promoted got better attendances in SL than in their promotion season. No, as we have seen, they didnt.


There is 20 teams in that league.

Agreed. It's mental. I mean, utterly mental. We can't even get Widnes, Castleford, Salford and London to be competitive in the top 14 on any consistent basis, and even a team like Saints, missing just a few players, can find itself uncompetitive. Yet some idiot has proposed a system in which the 10 nearest semi-pro clubs should play the likes of Wigan, Leeds, Wire ?

Nuts. Completely nuts. I can't even begin to imagine what the person who proposed this was smoking, but it should be illegal.

I think you're very naughty, and are trying to wind up championship clubs' fans. But I did enjoy reading that.

Exactly. The problem we have is money. We have enough to sustain a professional competition for 14 clubs, but only if they're supplemented by cash from sugar daddies. No drama there - that's the position of nearly every pro sports club. But we don't have enough cash to either (a) give money to the less well-supported clubs of the championship to go professional, (b) raise the salary cap for those clubs with cash, because to do so would make the current league-within-a-league divisions even more entrenched, or (c) to compete with the NRL or RU for top players.

There are two answers to this. The first is to focus hard on youth development systems so that we produce enough decent talent to replace the ones who get poached by richer competitions. To be fair to the cliubs and the RFL, that is certainly in a lot better state than it was. The second is to get more cash from TV, more cash from sponsorship and more cash from international tournaments.

The problem is that the RFL have, in the last decade, proved themselves to be utterly useless at raising cash. The Stobart free gift of the whole competition for 12 lorries was an utterly insane decision which has come back to bite us this year, because no sponsor is going to pay large bucks for something which the owners value so little that they gave it away. In addition, the negotiations with SKY over TV deals have been so poor by comparison to other sports commanding a similar audience. The canny international execs at SKY must watch Nigel wandering through their door with his begging bowl, and start laughing behind their hands.

As others have said, this is an attempt to address a problem we don't have. Our problem is not a lack of games between the top 12 clubs and the next 12, or a lack of fixtures. Our problem is a lack of money, and I'd rather the RFL actually used their time and energy employing someone who might actually be able to get some companies to part with some cash, and deliver a decent TV deal, than waste it on this nonsense.

www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/rugbyl ... eason.html "That plan would see 11 rounds of the 12-team format, allowing every club to play each other, before the top eight from the top division would splinter away into their own competition. The bottom four teams in the revamped Super League would finish the season playing in an eight-team competition involving the top four teams in the Championship. The bottom eight teams of the Championship would contest the third tier."

www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/rugbyl ... eason.html "That plan would see 11 rounds of the 12-team format, allowing every club to play each other, before the top eight from the top division would splinter away into their own competition. The bottom four teams in the revamped Super League would finish the season playing in an eight-team competition involving the top four teams in the Championship. The bottom eight teams of the Championship would contest the third tier."

How does this help anything?

Minor details like...what will be the salary cap(s?) during this fiasco? come to mind. How will clubs possibly plan revenue/expenditure against this uncertainty? Will the lower SL and higher championship teams go on a spending spree to try and ensure they get SL places (with resulting administration later for those that fail and maybe even some that succeed)? And what about the lottery that is the fixture list - imagine getting your away games in the first 11 games against top teams! Which teams will be landed with 6 away games?

So here is how it could look in 2015:

[uSuper League 1[/u:

Leeds
Huddersfield
Wigan
Warrington
St. Helens
Catalans
Hull FC
Bradford
=#0000FFWakefield
Toulouse
London
Salford

[uSuper League 2[/u:

=#0000FFHull KR
Widnes
Castleford
Halifax
Sheffield
Featherstone
Leigh
Batley
Whitehaven
Workington
Swinton
North Wales


So halfway through the season perhaps Salford, London, Wakefield and Toulouse split off and play Hull KR, Widnes, Castleford, and either Halifax or Sheffield or Featherstone for the right to be in the top four promoted back up to Super League 1 the following year.

Isn't it likely that the bottom four SL 1 clubs, with their superior funding, will be too strong for the top 4 SL 2 clubs, and nothing will be achieved?

I used to be for franchising, I used to be for locked Super League, I used to be pro salary cap, but it has been poorly managed, the fans are getting totally ignored and shat on, from the introduction of the Bonus Point to this ridiculous idea of split divisions, in my opinion Nigel Wood & the RFL are slowly but surely bringing the game to it's knees.

Instead of building on a straight easy system that works, top 5 play offs and regular up and down in a 12 team division for the top flight and throughout the divisions keeping a small but important amount of imports we have a division being split into more playoffs and more and more sub divisions.

Hard enough for the most ardent supporters to follow.

It's time for the people at the top of the think about reverting to regular league systems that are easy to follow, sometimes simple is the best policy.

2015, two tens, bottom 4in SL 2014 plus Toulouse fax Fev sheff Leigh and 1 other
SL 1 gets as now, SL 2 gets about £650k more if extra funding is found. Cap in 1 - £2.2m with £1.8m min, £1.2 m in 2
27 games, 5 team play off, 1up 1 down
Not an extra penny needed to fund that