Difficult to disagree.

I think that the propensity of the RFL to keep changing structures ad nauseum actaully does great harm to the game.

Having decided that the licensing system was the way to go (for better or worse) then they really needed to
(1) give it time to work and (2) properly administer it.

and (3) as I think you've said before work a damn sight harder/smarter to get some sponsorship in.

In conclusion probably best to change the people at the top than yet another re-structure.

Exactly it is all about money and the "ALL" is the game of rugby league as a whole and not just Super League.

I am suggesting that throwing all the money into one pot has not seen success and will not see success.

What other clubs could or couldn't do is unknown but at least they should be given a chance, the same chance that the current SL clubs have had for years in the protective umbrella under the licensing system and many of them failed to win a hand even when holding all the cards.

One of the reasons being mentioned is that crowds are down in SL and as a result the shortfall from the diminishing attendances should be subsidised from central funding.

Problem is that this money will be taken away from clubs outside SL.
How can that be justified, why should other clubs foot the bill for a problem that they have played no part in and in fact they are undergoing themselves.

On the one hand some in SL demand to be able to stand alone and get first choice but then ask others who they walk over to pick up the tab when it gets tough for them, which way do they want it they can't have it both ways.

As to NRL and Union. We will never be able to compete with the likes of them.
This paranoia with them is one of the biggest shams of all time.

Yes some will go and play in Australia and some play Union or soccer or whatever but it will be just a few and those that do will have their places filled with some other talent that will reach the grade and the game in this country will be just as good to watch just has happened in the past.

So what do you want to happen then because I can't really tell from that?

Baring in mind the RFL have completely failed commercially and the only money coming into the sport is what it gets now off the likes of Sky and there is seemingly no prospect of a big cash injection just what do you want to see happen?

The two proposals to restructure the game on the table both involve an expansion of the number of clubs in what you might term the elite competition. Either in two divisions or one of 24 that goes 8x8x8 at some point.

The clubs will all have to be funded to the same amount or either structure would be a farce so that has got to mean much reduced funds for the current SL sides.

That will lower wages for players and you don't seem to care if it does. The fact we can't compete with the NRL or RU on wages is not an excuse to pay our players even less than we do now.

People in favour of ending what they see as a closed shop that is SL seem to talk as if because they see a moral case for doing so then it should happen even if that ruins professional players livelihoods and the game ends up semi-professional again.

If this sport is to remain full time it can only support a certain number of clubs as full time clubs. The idea you can actually expand the top flight competition and remain full time without obtaining extra funding is bonkers but is exactly what the RFL proposals amount to.

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I sense a bit of yorkshire bias by the YEP but i hope IL will hold his nerve and get the "CASH" at the forefront of the RFLs minds and how they generate it !

What I would like to see is a chance for as many clubs as possible to progress. Let me try and illustrate.

The closed shop situation stops this from happening and produces stagnation with countless meaningless games that people simply do not bother to turn up to and pay and watch, even on tv some of the games are like watching paint dry.

Liken it to an elevator system between floors, at the moment it is out of service with no chance of going up or down.

Even if it was put back into service with the old promotion and relegation the gap between the floors is too vast to make the journey before coming straight back down again in an uncontrolled descent.

As you say a more even distribuiton of funding is essential for it to work.

That is exactly what the new proposed system was meant to do and close the gap and is exactly what this intervention by some SL clubs will prevent as they want more for themselves and less for the rest.

Everything goes in cycles and with the new proposals if a club was on the up naturally then the elevator could take them to the next floor with a chance of staying their.

If a club was in decline naturally and they went down the elevator they would be able to survive, regroup and have a chance to come back stronger.

If a club was somewhere in between then the same applies.

At whatever level a club is at they would have an equall chance to be competative and progress.

You mentioned that people have forgotten that it is a buisness but I say that allthough that is true many have forgotten it's a sport and run the game as if it were only a buisness.

In sport nothing generates exicitment and intererest more than competition, the more competition the better.

Introduce competition and the number of meaningless games would reduce as the majority of clubs would regardless of which division or league they were in have something to play for and when Rugby league is played like this you bet more would be stood there watching it.

This sporting side of the game needs to be rekindled.
This pathway for the clubs and their supporters needs to be reopened and quickly not closed even more.

As regards wages in any profession you can only get paid what is available and in difficult times it will often be less.
I am earning thousands of pounds less than I was 10 years ago but I don't expect something that was earmarked for someone else to be given to me.

It's central funding that we are talking about, in addition each club will be able to pay players what they can from a number of income sources depending on salary cap restrictions, I don't see wholesale pay cuts that will ruin the game.

Leave it as it is and it will die off that is what the recent review of the game has established otherwise there would have been no need for the review in the first place and no proposed changes.

Reading that it makes it sound as if the structure they were going for was the one with the 8x8x8 bit in it.

With a straight divi up of the Sky money the SL clubs currently get £1.2m. Do the same with 24 and it drops to £720K. This assumes the RFL get a share. So that is £480K the clubs either have to hive off their wage bill or generate as extra income to make up the short fall.

If the RFL want this system then in my opinion they need to find an extra £11.52m from somewhere so a professional game can maintain its current level of wages. That is 24 x £480K.

Of course this assumes that there are actually enough players of a standard to warrant being paid current SL level wages which there probably are not which is therefore another reason why this system is stupid.

On that basis you wipe out at least 10 clubs in one foul swoop, if that went through.

And Gary Hetherington would be voting for Rugby Leagues death sentence

1.3M to 12 SL1 clubs, 650k down to 150k on a sliding scale to SL2 clubs, 75k to Ch1 clubs. That would be an increase for ALL, but the greedy Chairman at the top want it for themselves. That's how I see it anyway. Hope all the Champ clubs refuse to take part in the DR scheme in 2014. How will you give your players games then

Where is the evidence that this is the case? Widnes have progressed in a controlled way under licensing and I don't see why the proposed alternative is going to allow progression. There are numerous reasons why your analogy to an elevator does not apply.

For a start unless you force-ably dismantle current SL squads and distribute the players around all the clubs the competition will be a farce when current SL clubs meet ex-championship sides. There just isn't enough talent to go around 24 clubs to give us a genuinely competitive competition and as in any sporting competition the best players will want to play for the best teams that offer the best chance of success. The first part of the season will be a joke and may serve to give the impression of an open system but just as some SL clubs have not got much hope of winning anything today that won't change for them or the ex--championship sides. It will offer an illusion of an open shop and the only way the monopoly of the current best sides will be broken is if someone "does a Koukash" and injects a shed load of cash into a team not because we have a new structure.



So easy to say that isn't it! An even distribution will reduce SL clubs income by a massive £480K. You can't just do that and hope it will be all right on the night. This is where the RFL have totally failed. Had they come up with this scheme AND funded it they may have got it through on a nod. The fact it isn't funded is the problem.



And why will any of this come to pass? An equal chance to be competitive with which clubs?



I didn't say that but the sport certainly can't ignore the money side of the game. I have always said the object of the exercise is to win trophies not generate cash but equally you can't ignore a certain amount of money is required to run a club competitively.



You can't just say "introduce competition" as if this is something you can just do because you want to. It requires far more than a desire for there to be competition and not complete blow outs where the top sides put 80 points on the bottom ones. Going to a league of 24 teams is not going to magically rekindle competition.



So I was right. You do want or at least expect the players wages to fall and consider this to be absolutely OK.

This is totally unrealistic. You mention "sport" a lot but what you are really talking about is amateur sport where money issues are secondary. You certainly don't seem to have any appreciation of what going full time means for a sport. The fact you earn less now is totally irrelevant because you are not a pro RL player.

People expect these men to train as top athletes thus forgoing any other career path and yet now they expect it done on the cheap.

The fact is we can as a sport afford to pay a certain number of players a wage commensurate with their talents and the jobs they do. And we [ishould[/i pay wages that will attract top athletes into careers as RL players or we may as well go and watch the likes of Wigan St Pats and close Wigan Warriors down.

There is plenty of competition in the amateur game but no one as in sponsors or broadcasters will contribute money to that.

Distributing the current finite amount money available as you want will inevitably lead to lower standards. You will not get players like Charnley accepting less wages just because there is a recession on. The idea we can let them leave and the next generation will be happy to play for less is unrealistic. They won't be daft enough to take the sport up in the first place.



There is nothing wrong with central funding if there is enough money in the pot to meet your ambitions but there isn't. That is the problem.



Why does this follow? I live in Chester which has a soccer team that will never be in the Premiership. It thrives in the leagues it play in. In Australia the NRL is a closed shop. RL outside of the NRL isn't dying in Oz.

The difference is for some reason some people here think the pathway to being in the Elite competition should be wide open and an incredibly easy one. I have no idea why anyone would think this as soon as they get a handle on the fact the game is a full time professional sport. It really is all about money and there is not enough of it.

Where are you getting these figures from?

This weeks RL press has a question and answer with te RFL and on the cash distribution of central funding it has this to say on indicative or possible figures that have yet to be ratified.

Question. How much central funding will each club get in Super League & the Championship.

The anticipated figures for Super League clubs would be £1.3 million from 2015.
Championship between 650k and 150k for 2015 depending on their league position in 2014.
Championship 1 clubs receive £75k.

Question. How does this compare to what teams in Super League and the Championship get in 2013.

Super League clubs receive a minimum of £1.130k in 2013 with Championship clubs receiving a minimum of 90k and Championship 1 clubs a minimum of £70.

Looking at these amounts the SL clubs will be getting more central funding not less from 2015 onwards as will the other divisions.
This money will be from the reduced number of current SL clubs going from 14 to 12.

The fact is some of the surving 12 want it all to go to them which is all well and good if you survive and are not in any of the other leagues, they are not being asked to take a cut at all and it is purely down to selfish greed as painfull as it is to accept.

Playing standards can only go up as some of the players currently at SL clubs move to other clubs just below them and the competition increases and is just what is needed to give the home grown production line a major boost.

There is far more going on here that we know about. But i do think that now SL clubs need to put their own clubs ahead of anything the RFL has. RFL is not for the clubs that's obvious for a while. Look at the sponsorship deal Stobart and no cash or i think it was William Hill and money. And they took the no money option and that was a lot for the clubs to miss out on. Something smells about that as that deal made no sense at all.

RFL and Hetherington have been hand in glove for a long time and look at the owners in SL i feel that IL knows he has the backing of Mcmanus and from other clubs including Wire. SL need to break away from the RFL and have their own board. SL clubs needs what is best for SL. There are 7 teams that have come out from what i can read in the papers and have said they are not happy about what is going on.

RFL is running the game to the ground and we now need a break away now with the interests of Super League the priority and not every club. Wether supporters of clubs lower down likes it or not SL is the money maker for the game here and the money should go to the clubs in SL and not to a group of glorified accountants at RFL headquarters who can not be bothered to find a sponsor for SL.

Saturday we had one of the best comebacks in rugby in an electric atmosphere something union could only hope for. But union have the marketing that we can only dream of. If SL gets it marketing right then League could have a real bright future here. If not then we will go back to the early 80's of a semi pro game.

The Sky money is £18m and the RFL gets one share so it is currently divided 15 ways. It would be divided 13 ways under the new scheme so 13 x £1.3m = £16.9m. That leaves £1.1m for another 12 clubs in SL2 and however many lots of £75K you dish out to Ch1 clubs. Just dividing by £1.1m by 12 means an average of £91.6K Give one club £650K and the other 11 would have to share £450K



Even if the RFL got zilch that would be £200K per SL1 on average.



I presume they would change the rules and bring back the far more sensible U21 competition and allow the odd over age player in. Which they should be doing regardless of any of this anyway!

I refer the honourable gentleman to the Q&A with the RFL which someone has kindly provided

The figures do not add up. The Sky money is £18m with the RFL taking a share. That would require more than £18m.

My figures are based on dishing the Sky money out evenly which is the only sensible way to do it. That would require the SL clubs to lose £480K. If what you say above is the actual proposal it is totally idiotic and will achieve nothing of what you want.

How on earth can a club on as little as £150K compete with those on four times as much and then some? How can this system possibly work contractually? When would a club stop getting its £1.3m and suddenly drop down to £650K? What happens to the players contracts then?

Are they ripped up as they were when we had simple P&R between SL and NL1? That was unworkable.

This has Nigel Wood's written all over it. He really is useless and given his past and disastrous association with your club (assuming it is Halifax) I can't believe you would trust him to devise a workable scheme.

How much evidence do you need, Widnes may have progressed but no one else has!!
It was down to chance that Widnes went up before the door was shut and they were stiched up in the first place to allow Crusaders in to SL when among other things they had half a team who shouldn't even have been in the country.

Nothing is being forcably dismantled that will not happen anyway SL is going to 12 teams regardless and the same players will be affected but the difference is with a pathway they will still have a chance to return to SL with a their new club without it they won't.

I don't agree with your figures and the stats show your maths are not correct as regards to central funding.

Competition will come to pass because there will be something to play for instead of meaningless games and it will be against their closest rivals, for example to avoid the drop or to gain promotion Wakefield v Cas a couple of years back packed the ground.

No I actually said I do not expect to see wholesale pay cuts but some who are not retained at SL level will probably get less.

The game is dying off because outside of SL it is in a cul-de-sac and even in SL apart from the same top clubs it's a poor product.

faxcar, Do you think £30K is good enough reward for lifting the Superleague title?

Yes and look what happened to both cas and wakey following that game.

Cas were relegated for a second time in two years - lost their best players and could not afford funding for their junior set up. Wakey ploughed money into their squad to stay up - money they could not afford and went bankrupt within 18 months and look as though they are on the brink again.

And lets not forget Widnes who after loosing to Cas in the play off final filed for bankruptancy after again reaching for the stars with money they dont have.

That sturcture and promoting 24 teams who are professional is not sustainable and nor is slashing budgets to the top teams as the quality will fall of the end of a cliff as players move abroad or to union

Dave O if £18m was correct then £2.4m is created by 2 less clubs plus £900k currently funding the 10, if you put a scale in starting at 5-650k for 1-4 clubs it will end up circa the £3.3m in the pot as the bottom will end up with about £100k
Hence the SL cash won't shrink to the 12
As previously stated I am in two tens camp, with SL money not dropping and a more vibrant elite that will be far more marketable
SL2 remains FT with a min £1m salary spend and becomes a very exciting comp with promotion at stake
Cutting off the 12/14 will kill the game as we know it

If £18m per year is the current Sky money, maybe there were talks with Premier Sports or another broadcaster to show the lower tier games, and therefore bring in additional funding to top up what Sky are already paying?

The SL clubs need something along of what the F1 teams have with FOTA

Super League as an organisation and a brand need to set up their own administration with a CEO, Finance Director and Marketing people.

With a well run organisation, financed correctly and with a new focus on Marketing it could get to a level we have yet to see.
SL will not acheive progress whilst it is linked to the RFL for Finance and marketing.

Anyone got a copy of Lenagan's letter? Seems to be doing the round between the RL journos on Twitter.

It was quoted from quite heavily in The Times today.

Well it's slightly off topic but.

As a one off payment it seems ridiculously low but it must have been known in advance and accepted, are there any positive financial spin offs and is it in the bigger picture the only "reward."

I suppose the income generated from the play offs such as from game attendances could be classed as reward.

The world club challenge could attract sponsership and home attendance income allthough it seems that Wigan would love to go and play in the Aussies back yard so there must be a good reason.

The point about the grand final though is on topic in the sense it was something to play for unlike many of the games now taking place.

That was under the old p&r.

That is precisley why they gap needs closing so the drop to give it a name isn't as fearfull or catastrophic, the old p&r was a recipe for sending clubs bust.

Many would spend beyond their means to avoid the drop but in spite of this would still go down, the others who did avoid relegation still had a bigger deficit than they could cope with, those chasing promotion did the same.

The point that game made was whenever there is something to play for people will come and watch whereas many are not doing so now because the game means nothing.

The new proposals were partly intended to make the drop or the rise more achieveable and sustainable.

The bottom line is none of this has anything to do with some current SL clubs taking the action they did on Monday.

Super League is to go to 12 clubs and the money that would have been given to the 2 clubs that won't be there they want all of it for themselves and that's it.