Ok, thanks for that.

Jeez that's some conclusion from my post
I would welcome a total clear out at red hall and the laws of business to be implemented by businessmen
No protectionist solutions let the cream rise and the pooh will find its level. We must create a vibrant elite and a platform to progress through to grow that elite
My utopia is two full time tens with 27 fixtures and a four team play off rising to six when we have 12 elite clubs
We can fund it now and with the right people running the sport should generate further income to reach our potential

[urlhttp://www.sportinglife.com/rugby-league/news/article/480/8962861/clubs-oppose-restructuring[/url







What credibility?

Exactly.

This bit:

"The Wigan owner is concerned that the plans would weaken the financial position of Super League clubs in comparison to those in the Championship, who would receive more central funding under the reorganisation."

Is key IMO. That says to me Wood has gone off on one of his typical self ed I know best paths without living in the real world.

He seems to come up with all these bright ideas but with complete disregard for the ramifications of them. The idea you could have two leagues of 12 going to the 8x8x8 playoff without a vastly increased income for the game seems absolutely bonkers. You may as well buy plane tickets for Oz for half the squads of the top 8 teams in SL.

I have long held the view that Wood fiddles while Rome burns and it seems to me he has come up with a new structure with complete disregard for the financial implications of it.

How cabn a club sell season tickets when they dont know the structure of the league they are going to be playing in. No wonder there have been no renewal packs sent out

I hope that everyone involved in the sport realises the seriousness of the situation RL is in.

We have seen a big funding cut to the amateur game because of declining participation, the continued financial failure of SL clubs and the SL is now well on its way to being a feeder league for the NRL and RU.

Much more is wrong with the sport than simply a failure to find a sponsor (appalling though that is) or the way cash is divided up.

I really hope this is a turning point but won't be holding my breath, frankly.

It's not for next year, it's for 2015. The Nigel Wood idea of twelves and eights was never going to be accepted by SL Clubs. It's basically a qualifying competition for another qualifying competition.
The meeting of SL Clubs was held at Warrington yesterday and was instigated by Ian Lenaghan. My thoughts are that they'll want to tighten a few things up. They need to run with a 12 or 14 team league, have a top 5 play-off, make the LLS more important, and re-introduce P and L.

Has IL said anywhere what league structure he would like implemented? Surely we can't go back to a simple one up one down P+R between a pro and a semi-pro league!? We know it won't work unless it's properly funded, and it certainly doesn't seem like there's any extra money kicking about for that.

So let's see basically you want unreconstructed Thatcherism.

That sort of thinking was the death knell for this country thirty years ago and it's making a fair job of buggering it up now.

Shame on you.

The current system is based on exclusion and protectionism, Bradford should have dropped as should the others who entered admin
If IL is concerned about the division of Sky monies reducing then he is the Thatcherite protecting the haves my friend, if he is concerned about the three eights split and its effects then I am with him on that
It must be two tens, full time with P&R keep the funding for SL1 and you create 700k for SL2, 13 home games plus magic with Toulouse in SL2
A simple 1v2 & 3v4 in week 1 then loser v winner for second GF spot in week2
Clear goals of 10 & 12, then 12 & 12 as clubs build from the third tier/ championship
IMO that structure is easy to sell to fans, broadcasters and sponsors. It raises intensity at the top and provides the opportunity to increase the player pool by keeping more players in a FT environment

I totally agree, we must have a simple structure that fans and neutrals alike all understand.
We need clear vision, leadership and great communication from the RFL, none of which have been evident in recent years.
Time for a clear out and a fresh start YES!

You seem to be suggesting that it's ok to let clubs like Bradford just go to the wall.

I suggest that you look up the original meaning of the word 'league'. Rugby League is a community in which we should all look after each other. The outcome of letting the rich get richer and the poor get poorer is that you will end up with 4 clubs. Then we can play Saints,Leeds and Warrington 10 times a season.

Sport is NOT a business - it's sport. It's serves a completley different purpose in life. Business is there to make money. Sport of course, can learn from business-nothing wrong with that, but you need to have an understanding/appreciation of its' role in society.

Ultimately I'd like to see a genuine competion with 16 clubs. Lots of work needs to be done to get in sponsorship, and it seems to me this is where the present RFL have let the sport down badly. Maybe IL will be able to do better, after all it is a great sport to watch.

The Rugby League community is incredibly sustainable, and long may it continue to be so - you let clubs like Bradford perish at your peril, a little bit of the game dies with them.

Firstly I am not a Wigan fan, I am a RL fan whose club allegiance is Leigh
You can't protect the status of a failed club to the detriment of one excluded from the party yet that was what we did rendering licensing to Sky Gold imo
The reality of the sport is that the non SL clubs have lost fans to SL clubs over these past 18 years and the lower tiers are unsustainable in the current structures, worse still have no hope
Leigh Fev and Fax have clung to a small fan base somehow the rest can't break 1000 every week, if we continue to kill the roots we will have 14 clubs paying players and that isn't enough imo
Sport is about the dream, that dream encourages fans and business to get involved, when it has been removed the fan base ages and dies the sponsors walk away and play golf
The RFL need to find a way of keeping the dream alive whilst making the elite truly elite

Lots of other, once big, clubs have gone to the wall, yet we're still here. Of course sport is a business, especially at the top level - perhaps not to make a profit, but to at least not continue to make losses. Clubs, at any level, have to either cut costs or increase income (or both), just like any other business.

None of this is for nest year is it? i though it was starting 2015?

Geoff and there lies the problem
In my business I can invest to expand, my competitors can't limit my ambition or control my growth. My investment can produce an immediate return that benefits me and within reason my destiny is under my control
I am able to put a few million into my passion Leigh RL but I have no control over where that will get me as even if I won everything next year I would be in the same place so why bother, I won't put it anywhere else as my club is my passion and then after a while I get bored with the status quo and am lost to the game
I went to the GF as a neutral and like many have said the neutrals where few this year, why? One reason is that we don't feel part of this once great family anymore and we then find other things to do
RL is not big enough to disenfranchise even more fans, the dream unites it brings emotions and we need to find it again to move forward

I completely agree with you - the licensing system encouraged only a small elite. I have long argued that the likes of Leigh and Fev need to be encouraged. You don't do that by letting clubs go to the wall though. Survival of the fittest leaves only one man standing in the end.

Of course all the Super League chairman who have brought this about are really thinking of the good of the game as a whole not one of them is thinking just what's good for just themselves.
After having 14 parts of the 15 available they now want the rest as well.
Anything with no roots will soon wither and die .

Great to be part of the rugby league family, the rest of us must be illegititmate members who havent supported the game spending thousands of pounds travelling thousands of miles in all weathers for decades etc.

Not only do we get dumped on by the RFL for years but now our own so called family.

You are missing the crucial differences between sport and business. Sport exists for many reasons.

In the capitalist system if a business doesn't make a profit it goes under and makes way for more profitable enterprises. Sports clubs exist to compete on the playing field. Winning trophies has nothing to do with making a profit. Of course a by-product of winning may be more fans, prize money and therefor profit, but it isn't the reason they exist. They exist to compete and win.

I am not advocating death as Bradford would have risen again, as we did and others but often you must fall to rise again
Sport today creates an elite, fancy backing against real or barca next year or Man U Man C CHelsea or nal ?? But that doesn't stop the dreams of the Wigans Norwichs etc
I can accept that its very unlikely we would ever win the league again or Fev the CC but you never know and that's why sport and dreams must never be separated

It's all about money, some are even saying that the funding of the World Cup should have been spent on the Super League clubs, good idea scrap everything and just have Super League, that's what in effect they are saying.

Think it through lets say all the money is given to only the SL clubs and another few million more as well, add as much as you like.

What will change.

You will still have the same clubs with the same players playing the same games at the same time getting into the same difficulties but with more money in their pockets to missuse for doing it whilst the rest of the game dies off.

I don't disagree with that but the solution ought to be proper application of the licensing rules not its complete abandonment just because the RFL have admitted they aren't capable of administering it. It's the RFL that is at fault not the concept of licensing.

Widnes have certainly benefited from a few years without the threat of relegation and I doubt Koukash would have invested in Salford if he thought they were to be relegated into a league with a salary cap of £300K.

So when things like Bradford happen it looks like a failed system but Widnes and Salford both might not be in the positions they are without it and the key point is whoever replaced them via promotion had we not had licensing would have been under the same pressure to avoid relegation and so would be an equally foolish investments for any potential owner.




There are two formats on the table both of which are unworkable unless all the clubs are on a level playing field financially from the off and for that to happen it would require the Sky money to be divided 24 ways (or 25 if the RFL get a share). This would require clubs to rip up players contracts for those on long term deals as the salary cap would have to fall drastically. Players pay would decline even further and before you could blink we'd have a semi-professional game once again.

Discussing which format is best is as I said fiddling while Rome burns. There just isn't enough money available to the sport to support more full time fully professional sides. Are some teams from outside SL a better bet financially than some of those in it so should get their licenses? Maybe so but if we expanded the number of pro clubs tomorrow into two leagues of 10 (or of 12) or the 24 team idea there just isn't enough money to do it and keep the game full time.

If this is one of the main concerns if IL and the other chairmen they aren't wrong are they?

Of course it is all about money. What professional sport isn't!

The problem is no one has ever seemed to realise once the game went full time it really [iwas[/i all about money.



Well what are you suggesting? We replace some clubs who you say are misusing money with another set who will do the same? There is no evidence those clubs outside of SL would be any better run or any less self centred once they got their slice of the pie than the current lot.

It's dead simple and always has been ever since the game went full time. It is simply that if you want a full time league you need each team to find at least £1.8m to pay the players wages*. If there isn't 24 x £1.8m available then the game can't afford a full time structure with that many (so called) professional sides because pro sport is [uall about money[/u. It probably also means each team needs to be turning over about £5m to be viable.

*and that is just to stay where we are never mind compete for talent against the NRL or RU.

How can you replace a failed SL club when you have nothing below SL capable of stepping up?
How can you create that vibrant second tier without cash?
Why divide it 24 ways? You look at what is available and decide how to best support your strategy then find more income
If you believe RL is 14 SL clubs them say it and let the sport split, if you want to find a better way tell us what that way is?

Nigel wood doesn't have anything to do with Salford, and from what I've heard Dr Koukash isn't happy with the RFL either.