I agree to a point. That's where you'd need a proactive governing body to cajole those clubs into action. It's partly why I'd favour a longer licence period (ie 10 years) so that every 2/3 years you can assess the clubs as to whether they're on track to meet their long term targets. You could also have short term targets to be met every 2/3 years and if they're not (within reason) there's some kind of punishment (or at least threat of punishment) if they don't improve.
Effective threats and punishment for those who deliberately lag behind and benefits and reward (WCC participation/extra TV money/salary cap exemptions/whatever) for those who do improve standards on and off the pitch.
I agree that's highly unlikely with the way the RFL currently runs though.

Really know how to cheer a guy up, Roy!

Sky's interest is going to be based on viewing figures. As long as we continue to watch SL in decent numbers (despite their abominable commentary team), they'll stay, albeit the size of the pot may not vastly increase.

Perhaps we're being just a little pessimistic, though. To hear some people talk, you'd think the sport was about to die off altogether. Nobody criticises the same teams playing the same matches in the NRL. OK, there maybe a few more competitive teams in the NRL, but it's certainly not a "any team can win it" comp.
As for P&R, I agree that the deck is stacked. But the new set-up gets a guarded thumbs-up from me by making the existing comp a bit more realistic: 8 teams in the play-offs was always crazy. How could you justify a team getting in the play-offs, having lost more games than they won during the full season?

It's probably worth also making the point that even in rugby union, seemingly often regarded by league fans as the land of milk and honey, they are talking about abandoning P&R because the last promoted side, London Welsh, haven't won a game all season, and don't look likely to. Tellingly, I gather that the money available to newly promoted clubs there is half(?) what the established clubs get. A familiar story, indeed.

It's difficult to argue with the sentiment in your post and in an ideal world, the game would spread across Europe, simply because RL is a fantastic sport.
Sadly, what you are wishing for will never, ever happen.

TV companies want top level sport to show on their channels and currently the French National League is just nowhere near being an attractive option.
Even Championship football, which attracts excellent crowds etc is not considered worthy of any significant TV exposure.

So how long can you wait ?

If we give The French "time" to do it on their own, their game will remain at amateur level and the French National game will never be competitive at the highest level.

What would you do to try and attract decent investment/ sponsorship because the plan that you have outlined, whilst strong on ideals and principle, is very unlikely to whet the appetite of Sky, Premier or BT etc.

Therefore, what you are advocating is a contraction of the sport in France, which will ultimately make SL less appealing and so on.

Off we go back to the 80's and a semi pro sport, no longer worthy of any national exposure.

Bradford aren't dead Bradford also didn't finish bottom. Bradford were killed by uncertainty. Uncertainty that franchising should have avoided but as usual internecine fighting and self preservation took precedent. The decision to halve their cash, to put them under transfer embargo and deduct them points was embarrassingly short sighted.

When Bradford first had struggles, the franchise should have been seized and they should have had the stability and space to rebuild. They didn't, we had one season where the clubs future was at risk, followed by another, followed by another followed by the ridiculous situation we saw at the beginning of last year.

You say people don't want to see a predetermined result and I agree. That's why we need more bigger clubs. Under franchising no club finished bottom twice in a row, ever club bar Bradford (because of a points deduction) qualified for the play offs.

Despite P+R for such a long period we still have never seen Leeds relegated, Never seen Wire relegated, Leeds have qualified for every single play-off we have had in the pro era. Not only can we pick all our winners from a total of 5 clubs (unsurprisingly the 5 best attended clubs) we can pick them this season as we can last.

WHilst there is no evidence that Toulouse wouldn't be another PSG, there is no evidence that Leigh wont be another Leigh, Halifax wont be another Halifax, etc etc etc.

I completely disagree that franchising would be a cartel would mean whatever you do on or off the field makes no difference. Sport is about winning, not being the best loser, we watch sport for who comes first, not who comes 2nd last, the short, harsh fact of it is, very few people were interested in the million pound game, few people watched it, few people attended it. Few people attended the championship GF when promotion was available, next to nobody watched London get relegated last year, Bradfords crowds did not recover, people weren't excited by a relegated battle (a battle lets not forget that was decided by events off the field rather than on it. Points deductions are not a sporting contest)

It may not be popular, and some people may be hurt by it, but people don't watch either our relegation battles, or our promotion battles in great numbers. We have invented a damaging and convoluted system to create a 'million pound game' where the amount of people who will watch, will be about the same amount as Bradford are averaging. An average we declare makes them no longer a big club.

franchising shouldn't have been accompanied by increasing the size of the league, it should have seen the number cut to 10.

Great debate.

It is so problematic.

Do we NEED to expand? well yes, ofcourse we do.

How, is the question and it seems we all have differing views on that, one thing is for sure though, just parachuting clubs in and leaving them to their own devices (or should that be vices) hasn't worked before so why would doing it again be any different?

Like happened with Catalans.

Why should Toulouse be any different to Catalans?

The Welsh, Irish, Scots and Italian Rugby Union boards even with the money, sponsorship and participation they get. know that they can not prosper by themselves so they created the pro 12.

There is only one other "hotbed" in Europe where RL is relatively popular and that is the south of France. So it is must be in our interest to offer expansion clubs to Toulouse and Avignon for example.

The crusaders, PSG etc are not a fair comparison as there was no evidence of any interest in the sport in those areas and the RFL in all their wisdom just plonked a club there and prayed it would work.

The area around the south of France have a relatively popular amateur/semi pro league, a top SL club with large attendances and competitive team, and a number of well attended internationals just to see their national side get tonked on a regular basis.

Bradford are not a big club. If you could liken them to a football club, it would be Blackburn Rovers. A small club who has lived beyond their means and had some success along the way. In the end without the success they are just in the same category as Huddersfield, Hull KR and Catalan. Winning trophies doesn't make you a big club. Until the SL era, Bradford were living off crowds of 4-5000. The 10000 crowds were just a purple patch that they went through.

Hull KR themselves won lots of trophies in the 80's and were the first team to finish top and win the premiership in the same season. However this doesn't make them a big club.

Big clubs are the ones who have the resources and fanbase even if they are down on their luck. It pains me to say it but Hull FC are a big club because they are starved of success but still pull in 10k+ crowds. The same could be said for Wigan before it all came together under Maguire(SP).

You're right but what you haven't addressed is this: inclusion of the Catatlans hasn't - not even remotely - elevated the French National game. It's hard for me to accept that the inclusion of Toulouse would achieve this either. I don't think France will challenge Australia or - probably - the Kiwis in my lifetime and if they are to challenge England then logic suggests that they will need at least 5 or 6 clubs playing at a level akin to SL (based on the fact that's the kind of pool that feeds our national side). With the best will in the world, we cannot piggy back them to that level.

I'm open-minded about expansion but there are so many questions I need answers to if I'm to be convinced that the way forward lies in France.

I agree that Catalans' inclusion hasn't done much at this stage for a competitive French international side. Your doubts are valid. However, what they have done is added a significant amount of the impression of the reach and popularity of the game. A league with Catalans in it is a much more attractive and glamorous proposition than a league where Catalans are replaced by another M62 club.

In terms of their impact on the game as a whole in France, I would be interested to hear from someone with genuine knowledge of that field. I just don't know enough about their wider impact. We can certainly say they've had little noticeable impact on the national side, but what impact have they had on increasing playing numbers (or reducing the rate of decline), money circulating in the game, public and media profile, or attracting and developing more potential future French professional players? I don't know.

I think it is, however, also a reasonable and valid argument that a second French club would be much more likely to reinforce any positive effects than take away from them.

Another way of looking at it is this; we have three possible situations for the future of our game :

1) Status quo. There will be no new clubs. This is it for us - these 12 clubs, playing each other every year, with no prospect of change unless one of them does a Bradford, goes bankrupt, and thus has to be replaced by a weaker, but otherwise similar club from a similar area with similar unimpressive prospects. Only a small risk of disaster, but

2) Seek new coverage/player pools/supporters elsewhere in the UK. But where ? London was by far the most likely contender, and was starting to produce good numbers of players, including some of good quality. Benign neglect has killed it, and I'm struggling to see how that recovers in my lifetime. So where else offers anything beyond what we have at the moment ? I see nowhere.

3) Admit Toulouse. There are risks there, but also possible rewards. The admission of Toulouse would be an addition to the spread and potential of the game for all the reasons above. But there would, of course, be a risk it'd fall flat on its face. If the RFL approached it as it has previous expansion clubs, with a form of benign neglect, then that risk would be higher than if it was an interventionist strategy determined to make a success of it even if that required additional investment.

So it seems to me we have a choice between deliberate stagnation, complete wishful thinking, or a risky venture.

Only one of those offers any realistic prospect of reversing the shrinkage in our game and trying to re-establish some growth and momentum. It might be a bad choice, but it's better than the alternatives.

Roy I have no issue with admitting Toulouse.

My issue is people using the introduction of Toulouse as a foil for scrapping the new system before it has even started.

You can easily adapt the league and the teams playing in it to admit a new team to the top flight.

But I do not agree that you cut your base adrift.
I don't agree that protection for the new club is open ended.
I don't agree that the new system is a closed shop.

I think people look at the system and just count the numbers and falsey ascert there is no route to SL.
I think they also assume the difference between the bottom of SL and the top of the Championship is a constant set in stone.

Personally I see it as more of a precurser to the Championship being encouraged to develop more fulltime professional players, to build towards a standard that will allow them to enter SL. And if a ambitious man wants to put money into say a Dublin team. They could start a semi pro team in the lower division and quickly ramp up over 2 years to be in SL.

If money is all it takes to get into SL, then if they are spending the same as the top Championship clubs, then they will be there or there abouts.

So that is 2 routes into SL. You can drop straight in with a protection for x number of years, or build up, which ever is best suited to you or the league. But saying it has to be one or the other, seems like a mis-leading debate. You can have both.

As for the same teams winning all the time. It's never an issue for football. In fact Football benefits from the churn of P&R as whilst it has not made a huge difference in terms of the top 4 or 5 teams it does spread the number of teams over the years in the top flight.

But I do think we over state the demise of RL far too much. Attendance wise, there is not a huge difference between RL and RU.

RU has a European and International competition which exhaults the game. But if we have a SL that is fully European that would be the only thing we had, were as RU has both a domestic and European competition. Could you imagine that in RL. People already say we play too many games. Were as RU play far more games and extract players from their teams, mid-season to play international.

How? How practically could we put a team in SL and protect them under this system without making it even more convoluted than it already is?

With regards to building the championship closer to SL, I really don't believe it will happen. We can't even get 12 SL standard clubs, and all of a sudden we are going to get 24? The only way we will bring the championship closer to SL is to bring the level of SL down. That's not a good thing. That's a terrible thing. That really would put the future of the game at risk.

And in football, the 'churn' of P+R has spread the number of teams in the top flight, it also saw a ridiculous amount of them go bust.

We disagree on this. Largely because I think there's only one club in the championship which has the potential to support a full-time professional operation, and that's the very same Bradford we just kicked out into there. For the rest, their only chance of doing so would be for something to change dramatically for them off the field. But whereas licensing would allow them to then translate any off-the-field change into a realistic bid, the current system wouldn't, which is a bit ironic.



This is fantasy, I think. The point about ambitious men is that they like success and they like a seat at the top table. In return, they commit their cash. The proof of that is in the location of the various rich men we do have in our game. Every one of them is attached to a SL club. There are plenty of rich men from Sheffield, Doncaster, Oxford, Hemel Hempstead, Gloucester and London, but none of them are willing to commit much cash to sides playing with no limelight in front of tiny crowds for the right to have a one-off go at beating a team with a much bigger budget and much better players in two or three years time. Like it or not, that's the way it is. Stick Salford in the championship, and see how long Koucash lasts. That will never happen. We aren't big enough as a sport, and the lower divisions don't provide enough profile, income or interest to sustain that sort of build-from-the-bottom approach. The only clubs which will ever rise to the top of such a set-up are those who are already there : Leigh, Halifax, Fev. No new club can build a similar level of historic support based on a rise through the lower divisions.




I'd love to think that the door is still open for us to say that if opportunity comes knocking - either in Toulouse or elsewhere - then we still have the capability of finding a place in SL for a genuinely exciting new club of real potential. However, we don't. Partly because we now have a system which only actually works with the numbers of clubs we have, and partly because, as this thread demonstrates, you and I both know that any attempt to do so will be met by the usual self-interested uproar of those who want to keep this a closed shop, and who can't, or won't see what is happening to the game as a result of constantly allowing the tail to wag the dog.


I admire your optimism and determination to see a half-full glass. I'm afraid that the last two years have left me with a very different view of domestic RL in this country. The London and Bradford sagas have suggested very strongly that the decision-makers in our game - not just the RFL, but also the clubs - have abandoned any hope of trying to protect the game from the chill winds which are coming as the pay-to-watch TV revolution gathers pace. It's almost as if they've accepted that the game is up, and a return to semi-professionalism is on the way, but rather than try to avoid that outcome, or shape our own future, they'll instead bunker down and try to suck as much as possible for themselves out of that teat before it runs dry.

We obviously disagree, there is no doubting that. But I would just point out that it would not be the first time someone has called the end time on RL. But I don't see it for the reasons that

We have (historically comparable) good crowds.
The finances are decent at the moment (again historically most clubs ran at a loss in semi-pro times)
The NRL is coming around to more international exposure (slowly)
I don't see the Championship as a graveyard for ex SL clubs.

On a more philosophical point.

The glass is neither half full or half empty.

It has half liquid/half gas
Therefore the glass is technically always full.

I still think a welsh club is a better prorct than another French club. There is a strong history, an interest in the game and very real potential to see significant development at jnr level with welsh kids playing in SL more and more, not just for the welsh club but others as well. That is why nz are now a world power again, not just the Warriors but the fact most nrl clubs have 4 or 5 kiwis in their squad. Due to language and culture it is unlikely we'll see many 16-18 year old French kids moving to England to get a SL spot.

Come again? Myth? Nah mate, it's real. I've been goin since a wor a lad.

Nah. The Bulls aren't dead. You may not have heard of it, but we play in this league called "The Championship".

Nah. Bradford's been around since the league was founded. The name of any holding company for the time being is about as important or relevant as the name of the chairman. Like, not at all.

Actually pretty much they do. Twickers is regularly full when showing a field full of unfit lards stood about watching penalties. In e.g. the FA Cup, some non-league team that has been playing for centuries with crowds of 500 will get their record crowd to see a tie with Man U even though they know, barring a one in a million miracle, they will get pasted by Man U's B-team. Golf crowds shot up during the period when it was impossible to beat Tiger Woods. And pro wrestling fils huge Arenas all around the place, with NOTHING BUT predetermined results. No, you can get a big crowd to anything, the only thing you need is that lots of people see your event as likely to be fun and value for their money, that's it. And you can be good as you want, if it doesn't appeal to the masses, they won't come.

Hey, what not kick 8 clubs into touch and bring the whole French elite over,

Tiny little insignificant backwater Wales will never be really competitive with England, let alone Australia, in rugby league. It has a tiny population and rugby league there has to compete with rugby union and football. There is no population there for rugby league to grow large. It can only ever hope top be a second tier rugby league nation.

Only France has the potential, given its huge population, of generating enough players and money, to become competitive with England, Australia and New Zealand (as it once was before rugby league became a full time professional game). If rugby league could attract 10% of the population of France to be players or followers --roughly six million fans and 100,000 players at all levels --- it could be as powerful as New Zealand and Australia. However it will never appeal on that scale until it has more professional clubs. And the only way France can have more professional clubs is by promoting them slowly over a 6-9 year period into Super League --- starting next year with Toulouse.

Once you have four professional French clubs in Super League, France will be successful internationally because there will be more than 50 professional French players to select 18 from for the French national team.

Ultimately six French clubs would be ideal, playing in a conference set up within Super League. Those clubs should be: [iCatalans, Toulouse, Avignon[/i and [iParis[/i, to be followed later by[i Lyon[/i and then either [iMilles[/i or[i Montpellier [/ior [iBordeaux.[/i There will be heightened interest in rugby league in France each time you add a new French professional club to Super League, such that more French boys will start to play, and more rich men will step forward to offer to invest money to create a new club for the future. French TV networks will start to offer more serious money for broadcast rights the more French clubs there are.

I was wondering when someone was going to mention Wales. I agree it's a better bet. When the CC Final was held at Cardiff it always attracted attention from local fans; the RFL should have built on that.

And Wales's small population is neither here nor there. It doesn't stop them being being one of the main forces in world RU. NZ hardly has a massive population either. And NZ's example is fruitful; it gives the lie to the argument, "Ah, they're all mad about RU; it's a waste of time". The success and growth of league in NZ indicates just the opposite.

Why don't we take heed?

The point is that RL is significantly stronger in France than in Wales, so build on that first.
Wales has plenty of potential and could sustain a SL club if there was enough desire to do so.

Heaven on earth for some,they wouldnt get to many games but still.......

I've read some lunatic ideas but this thread is winning. 6 French clubs in SL? Somebody been on the vin? So, we wreck the SL for English clubs by kicking half into the Championship, presumably in this period France suddenly discover 250 good SL standard RL players who populate the 6 clubs and are good enough to compete internationally; and then what?

Comes a day, France is now "strong enough" so from a given date all the French clubs are parachuted back into a new strong French league, leaving English SL with what - the remaining 6, plus another half dozen that are part time and been languishing in the Championship for 10 or 20 years to accommodate French development?

It is nuts. Totally nuts.

Catalan has been a success story but really that is the opportunity - there, now -for the FRENCH to build and develop a FRENCH league with the ultimate aim of Catalans being initially the Glasgow Celtic of that league. Cats would cede from SL and play in the new French league.

It is NOT up to the RFL or ESL to kick on from here to do all the âne travail for decades in the fantasy world of handing the French some tailor-made league. We can and should be of every assistance to them to develop their game, but really if despite the development and progress of Catalans, there is no will, drive, organisation or money within France to pick up the baton and run with it, then fsck'em.

It's so depressing that some RL fans genuinely think Catalans are only here as a spring-board for an independent French league.

Do you really just want to watch northern team v northern team in SL forever more?

That's wrong, the fact is, nobody knows why Catalans are "here". We should know. The RFL/ESL should have a medium term and long term plan in relation to French based clubs, and we should all know what it is. But we don't. In fact, I assume that they do not actually have any such plan, at all, and are just winging it.

But anyway, since you obviously do know, please tell the rest of us. If Catalans are NOT "only here as a spring-board for an independent French league", then why are they here?




Nice straw man, but who said that? We are just speccies, what we "want" is pretty much irrelevant; but if there is a sensible and viable plan to change that situation then we should know what it is. Bearing in mind that most clubs are already on the financial edge, some pie-in-le-sky European Champions league talk just sounds to me like the sort of thing you might hear on a delusional ward if you left the patients with a crate of vino and a supply of LSD.