How did it not work before? There's no perfect system, but the one we had before worked a damn more than licensing!

Worked for who? The multitude of clubs who went bust either chasing SL or avoiding relegation? The youngsters who never got a game because clubs were fielding 15 overseas players to avoid relegation?

What worked better the less investment in facilities? The less investment in youth development? The importation of kolkka stiffs?

How so? If they split, then the chances are the RFL/SKY TV deal gets ripped up and SKY negotiate a new deal with the new SL group.

Again, how so? Of the teams NOT mentioned in the story, only Leeds would be a major loss. St's v Wire, Wigan would still sell well enough. Aldo, if these were to be a 10 team division, then I have no doubt that the management structure would put in place central marketing teams to assist clubs to generate individual ticket revenues.



Sports club ownership is rarely about profit. I suspect what Mt Hughes and Ken Davy already know, the Good Dr at Salford and the barrow boys at Bradford will soon discover.


10 teams is perfectly acceptable.....27 regular season games 13/14 then 14/13. Top 4 play-offs. Replace Magic weekend with a RL9's weekend played in London (Craven cottage) LIVE on FTA TV.
speaking of FTA coverage, highlights show on FTA with a broadcaster who will show it at a decent hour nationally.


It is nothing of the sort. IL and the clubs named are concerned that they are being railroaded into yet more structural changes that in essence are designed to cover up the failings of the RFL to a) govern the game properly, b) manage those licenced clubs effectively and even handedly and c) generate a brass farthing in revenue outside the TV deal .



Reading some conspiracy theorists on here, with particular emphasis on the media bias, then this will be a front news celebration by the IRB/RFU at the demise of RL







I Would suggest that the meeting will end with no decisions made and there will be 6 weeks + of political wrangling and a settlement will be reached after the RLWC with the minimum being a change of senior management at the RFL.

That hits the nail on the head IMO.

The RFL (well Nigel Wood in essence) seem to think yet another round of structural changes will solve everything. It is fiddling while Rome burns and is a very head in the sand approach that simply ignores the main issue which is lack of revenue.

This happened pre SL and look at the mess the WHOLE GAME is in, in this country courtesy of that.
Personally I would want the game to use the ethos that caused its creation but since GREED and self importance allied to short termism along with incompetent club directors then the way forward for the game in this country is surrounded by fog

I'm sorry, but you're mad. the decision to hold the soccer World Cup in Qatar is several orders of magnitude more barking than the combined wildest dreams of the entire RL board.

I seriously doubt Salford will be supporting the RFL.Koukash has been very vocal about how he perceives the RFL to be poorly run.He has probably spoken out against the RFL more than any other Chairman this year.

Chairman Kou and his little red club?

C'mon, the decision is due only to the bank rolling nature of the host FA/predicted profiteering of FIFA from the event and that no matter what time of year the Football world cup would be held it would have very little bearing on any nations domestic competition never mind UEFA or the other regional associatons and soccer's governing bodies would see to it that it would work seamlessly. Just because they don't agree is another matter but it'll get sorted with zero actual impact, that is because they have the organisation/infrastructure to make the changes if need be & financial clout with money that would run RL for 50 years globally on one years revenue stream.. If you can't see the imbalance of impact then you're barking mad...

Of course the host nation is expected to make huge profits/income streams (Germany 2006 quoted around $400M extra tourist money with $3 BILLION in retail sales in a month!)

Everything that the RFL does/doesn't do has a massive and very direct impact on Rugby League because we cannot absorb mistakes readily, even small ones because we are a damn poor sport surviving by the seat of our pants on a shoestring, batting way above our league (pardon the pun) in terms of what we actually offer relative to our revenue in comparison to other sports. Losing the main sponsor has had a really detrimental effect, I reckon the loss of the money has impacted the 21s/19s structure as well as others.

IF, and it's a big if we had more income from sponsors coming in commensurate to what the sport actually gives then RL in this country at least would be on a far better footing at all levels and have a healthy future. As it is the so called guardians of our sport have been letting us the fans and the clubs down for decades and we have what has been sown..absolutely feck all.

There's lots of ways this could pan out, but a 'split' is definitely one of them if nobody is in the mood to back down. However, it won't end up with (say) just 6 clubs going it alone for very long. Nobody is going to split unless they're certain they have the TV deal lined up, in which case, the 'splitters' will basically win the argument, and any self-interested club offered the chance will join them. Leeds, for example, may well ( I have no idea ) side more with the RFL than the 'rebels' at this time, but if the rebels win (i.e. get the TV deal lined up ) then Leeds would almost certainly join them.

Yes, the 'split' is a possibility (though a negotiated climbdown is more likely) but any split will quickly become an overwhelming victory for one side or the other and thus cease to look like a 'split' and more like a change of management. In practice, if a split happens, there can only be one winner - the rebels, since they wouldn't have split in the first place without the TV deal, etc.

One thing for sure, it's not a childish tantrum to refuse to tolerate mediocrity or worse year after year.


Given the current state of affairs, I think the RFL leadership must surely step down on the grounds of having lost the confidence of too much of the sport. Regardless of who's right and who's wrong, at some point you just have to say "we haven't got your confidence and therefore can't do the job".

I'd quite happily hold the RLWC in Qatar if they wanted to give the sport a few hundred million oil dollars.

This

Good for you. As long as you don't mind all the workers dying constructing the stadiums, or seeing how RL looks when played in 50 degree heat. A career in sports administration awaits.

The natural successor to Nigel Wood

www.sportinglife.com/rugby-leagu ... tructuring So that is the RFL emascualted and rendered incapable of even nominal leadership. I know plenty felt they weren't capable of effective leadership anyway, but we're stuck with a governing body that clearly can't govern. People talk about the EPL breakaway, but they left the Football League and went to the Football Association. The clubs are now on their own and I expect cracks will soon start to appear. They'll either sort something or more likely vote themselves to a stand still. The 'status quo' that the Halifax chairmen mentions isn't an option, however much some in SL might wish it otherwise. They themselves stuck the dagger into licensing. They could go for full-blown NRL-style franchising, but that is very much not a whole sport solution and would likely lead to a split. Though unusually it could be end up coming from the second tier. Worrying times - though they've done the right thing to put it into the long grass until after the WC. Gives everyone some time to stare over the precipice, which might do some good.

www.sportinglife.com/rugby-leagu ... tructuring So that is the RFL emascualted and rendered incapable of even nominal leadership. I know plenty felt they weren't capable of effective leadership anyway, but we're stuck with a governing body that clearly can't govern. People talk about the EPL breakaway, but they left the Football League and went to the Football Association. The clubs are now on their own and I expect cracks will soon start to appear. They'll either sort something or more likely vote themselves to a stand still. The 'status quo' that the Halifax chairmen mentions isn't an option, however much some in SL might wish it otherwise. They themselves stuck the dagger into licensing. They could go for full-blown NRL-style franchising, but that is very much not a whole sport solution and would likely lead to a split. Though unusually it could be end up coming from the second tier. Worrying times - though they've done the right thing to put it into the long grass until after the WC. Gives everyone some time to stare over the precipice, which might do some good.

When SL started didn't it used to be run by itself (or more accurately Maurice Lyndsy) then eventually wen back under the RFL control?

What would a split give the clubs what they don;t have now? Its not like the game has got squillions to spend on marketing or that th eimage of the game is going to change and start bringing in blue chip companies falling over themselves.

There are no easy quick solutions to one hundred years plus of the games image being seen as thuggery by northern working class louts. I had hoped when SL started, the game was awash with new money, we had national marketing featuring a semi naked paul rowley getting the grils on the bus excited and martin offiah blazing a trail in Lonodon tube stations, Branson was in love with the Broncos and the game had a big city vision that we might finally have turned a corner, but alas it was a false dawn.

We didn't fully embrace the vision. One man's 'tradition' is a another man's short-sighted stubbornness. The mergers proposed at the start of SL should have happened.

From the sky sports app on my phone this morning this "breakaway" is being led by IL of Wigan and it seems he wants to keep a 14 team SL and is unhappy with the share out of monies and wants less to go to the championship with more money to the SL CLUBS.

And whilst all this goes on, I read in Yorkshire Business magazine that the RFL turnover is up 25.3% and SL Europe Ltd's turnover is up 24.3%.

I agree, the Qatar thing is completely bonkers, but at least FIFA / UEFA are addressing in well in advance. If changes need to happen fine, but we should be planning for 3-4 years down the line, not 3-4 months.

Turkeys voting for christmas again !!. the bottom line is that it is all about the self interest of the top clubs getting the majority of the money and everything else outside can go and sort themselves out. I agree that this will cause further decline in the game as a whole. They probably want to keep the DR system too to save them money developing their own youth systems. Absolute Bonkers !! and the RFL should stick to their guns and not be dictated to by these chairmen, they would certainly go up in my estimation, that wouldnt be hard though, they have allowed the decline in the game to happen.

As others have said, the issue here is that there is too much 'tail wagging the dog' throughout the game.

Other the course of the last five years or so, other sports have kicked on massively whilst we have, at best, remained static and, perhaps more likely, regressed a few years. The game is less attractive to sponsors, it is being played by poorly run clubs in stadiums bordering on dangerous and it is loosing it's biggest talent to overseas.

There is no clear vision for addressing the key, fundamental issues within the game.

[listNo revised structure involving P&R or "2x12 + 3x8" will address the fact that the game can't attract commercial partners and revenue because it is watched by an audience that advertisers don't want to connect with.

No revised structure will address the fact that we have some very poorly run, financially unstable clubs within the game.

No revised structure will address the fact clubs cannot fully grasp the concept of marketing.

No revised structure will address the significant failings at international level.

No revised structure will address the the huge decline in junior and amateur players, or address the very real issue of a talent drain to Australia.[/list:u

The game has to strive towards excellence, get the elite product right and drive up standards. If not, it will be left further behind. To do that, we simply can't afford to have the top clubs getting dragged down to the level of bottom clubs. We have to set an expectation that the bottom clubs must step up to the level set by the top. If that sounds harsh, then sorry, but sport is a business and that is now business works.

We do not have 14 top clubs we have 5/6 at most and that is why we have the problem
We have low regular season intensity and have destroyed the CC our crown jewel
If koukashs mate bought Rochdale tomorrow through 1.8m into the team where would they be playing in 2015?
When Bradford and Salford and Wakefield and crusaders went belly up who was ready to replace them?

It appears to me G Hetherington gets a lot of stick rightly or wrongly, but it would appear he is the only chairman of the bigger clubs not taking a self interest approach to the game and looking at the bigger picture. Ie not just money grabbing for the rhinos and wanting a more even share of Money. It appears to me that if promotion and religation is brought back in for it to work there needs to be a greater sharing of money to championship clubs, to be able to compete when promoted and survive when religated

In the often warranted SL bashing, I personally think we should also have a debate about whether the lower level clubs are also guilty of putting their own self-interest ahead of the game.

The lower clubs have every right to bang on the door of super league and have a system put in place that allows them to the top table in a sustainable way. I support them in that. However, gleefully jumping on the bandwagon of the 3x8 option does you no credit. That pathetic option isn't in the game's best interest, its in the little clubs best interest. It is the most absurd fudge of an idea I've ever come across in sport.