Rugby League Gets Big Government Handout Many rugby league sides will have breathed a massive sigh of relief as the news broke overnight that the government had set aside a sum of £16 million to safeguard the sport through the Coronavirus pandemic.   RFL chairman Ralph Rimmer had been petitioning the government for support since the shutdown in mid-March, and Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden said that the government had made the move to ‘protect the entire sport’. READ MORE ON THIS STORY...

Rugby League Gets Big Government Handout Many rugby league sides will have breathed a massive sigh of relief as the news broke overnight that the government had set aside a sum of £16 million to safeguard the sport through the Coronavirus pandemic.   RFL chairman Ralph Rimmer had been petitioning the government for support since the shutdown in mid-March, and Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden said that the government had made the move to ‘protect the entire sport’. READ MORE ON THIS STORY...

Fair play to Boris and his government, £16m in a time of crisis is a big deal and will hopefully save our game.

Welcome news indeed. As I understand it the 'gift' is a loan hopefully on very favourable terms over a very long time. RL is very proactive in its local communities and as a whole.

Hand-out ? Isn't it a loan ?

Yep Loan , so whilst welcome at this present time it will have to be paid back

The term 'handout' annoys me a bit. It implies it's a freebie giveaway.

It's a sensible investment decision for the long term. RL contributes plenty to the economy, most RL players are earning more doing that than they would be in another job, so they are paying more in tax. All the money spent on tickets, refreshments at the games, merchandise is contributing tax to the Exchequer and giving revenue to other businesses which feed off RL. All the community work which RL clubs do is socially useful stuff that isn't having to be paid for by local authorities or schools.

Without financial support now some clubs would go bust that are otherwise viable, which would be a permanent loss to the economy, less tax, more people claiming dole, less revenue for other businesses. I bet over time, that would cost the taxpayer more than £16m.

Let's hope fans get out in big numbers when we get to watch live again ,whenever that may be.

I don’t think I’ll be going for sometime sitting by people I don’t know.

This season will be written off.

A contact sport like RL is the last thing that should be encouraged with the amount of bodily fluids flying about.

Also as Duckie suggests, I'm not convinced, despite the bravado of some, there is much desire for people to go out and huddle together with a load of strangers on a terrace any time soon.

Surely players will be tested before games. If they are clear there will be no risk of infecting.

Tests are useless. In the 48 hours that it would take to get the results of the test, the players, match officials and all other staff who would need testing could pick up the virus. So, by the time you start the match, the test is worthless.

Again, spot on.
I'm getting pretty sick and tired of the British media DESPERATE to get the Premier League started again, so they can can get one of their "darling" teams a title/cup/qualification

I must admit, being an island nation, I didn't expect us to be affected as horrifically as we have. Yet, 3 months into this, and 400-500 A DAY are still DYING, and needy lovers are chomping at the bit to get a league started. PATHETIC

I've read on other boards/media etc, about how society has (temporarily) changed for the better. We are more tolerant to each other. Yet in sport, I read/hear "not fair, we're still in this conp, we can still win this, why should it be stopped"

There's more to life than titles , and honours boards.

Sport (particularly ours) will hopefully survive this.

Some of the viewpoints we are seeing recently in the media are being motivated by commercial concerns.

Sales of newspapers have plummeted during the lockdown and although website hits have increased which increases advertising revenue, they are struggling to generate enough digital revenue to cover the losses. It especially hits the ones whose business model involves a paywall as they are reliant on getting new subscribers and the free sites like Guardian and BBC are hoovering up the clicks.

The Sunday Times has traditionally been very pro-Conservative but they have broken with protocol in becoming the publication that has been most critical of Boris and the Conservative government with its big investigation - they are trying to generate interest that will encourage people to subscribe because they need the revenue.

The ST editorial team is also trying to change the demographic that they appeal to. A lot of the right wing newspapers have based their approach on the 'culture war', they are appealing to working class 'white van man' and wealthy pensioners and making an enemy of millennials and latte-drinking metropolitan professionals. The problem is if you want to make money off digital subscriptions to the people who sit reading their tablets in coffee shops and trains, its the millennials and latte-drinkers who you need to target. While lockdown is on, white van man isn't buying the papers, and the ST are also spooked by the fact their wealthy pensioner base will be dwindling in coming years (especially if covid hangs around in the long term). So the ST's change in politics is a business decision.

The Telegraph and the tabloids are doubling down on the culture war but they desperately need lockdown to be ended soon so they can recover their print newspaper sales. The longer people are staying home, the more their audience is being exposed to the free right wing blog sources which are being shared around social media and becoming an alternative to clicking on the tabloid websites (which aren't reader friendly - the nature of tabloid journalism works better in print than online). Hence you're seeing all these articles now saying that we need to "end this madness", and their sudden concern for issues such as mental health, loneliness and domestic violence during lockdown, whereas they used to see these as snowflake issues.

How very dare you...I’m a flat white drinker. Or at least I was, I’m saving a fortune grinding my own beans (not a euphemism in case anyone was wondering).

Do you take it with soy, almond, coconut or rice milk?

If you still drink it with cow's milk you may as well have a skinhead and a sleeve tattoo.

So a promise of a hand out, then immediately there’s talk of transfers. That’s not that this handout should be for should it?...is it?