[urlhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-league/19991897[/url

Not exactly unexpected but lets see what help the RFL give here !!

How strange? The RFL is telling us how strong SL is becoming and how licensing works really well, yet things like this happen!

Remove four teams from SL - Salford, Castleford, Bradford and London. Place them in the league below and make them go semi pro.

Looking at this, I'm not convinced they're not victims of a bunch of carpet-baggers. Something fishy afoot methinks.

Missed their attendance target, so finances not where they should be, but this winding up nonsense doesn't sit right.

Exactly what a club who has just moved in to a brand new stadium needs, less income, less visibility and playing at a lower level.

Perhaps the RFL will buy the stadium!!!!!

Drop 2 teams out of the league, bring back promotion and relegation, make the play offs a top 5 system and move the challenge cup final to late May.

Easy steps to making the game stronger. There will be a couple of clubs noses put out of joint but they bring little to the table as things currently stand(and 'they' could be 2 of about 4 or 5 clubs).

It's the bit in brackets thats the issue....

OK, So we do that.

How does dropping two of our pro clubs to the semi-pro level increase the amount of clubs we need at the necessary pro level?

How does P+R help the 4 or 5 clubs you are talking about not being at the requisite level get to the level of the other 9 or 10?

How do any of the things you have suggested help us toward the aim of more clubs being at the level we need them to be?

Why don't you tell us how we stop clubs have financial issues... Those are the facts, rather than a pipe dream...

I sort of guess that was tongue in cheek as we all know Salford Reds are tenants like ourselves.

Well you don't start by throwing them to the wolves. I do think London is a lost cause & they have no right to be in SL, but Salford should be able to draw on a reasonably large fan-base for those who don't (or won't) identify with Cheshire, or out west or just don't like pies.
The lamentable marketing of the game generally is a major problem and the RFL appear to be simply scared of banging heads with Twickenham and balk at the preponderance of wendyball clubs around Manchester.

I work in the of Manchester and I have never seen any advertising other than for the two main soccer clubs (except for the play-off advertising which was poorly thought out & didn't make any sense to anyone outside the game). The Magic weekend could have been a convention of wizards for anyone knew about it and if you edit the Red's logo to blank out their name then ask people who's logo it is you will almost always get something along the lines of "it's a red devil, so it must be M.United". I've tried it - depressing.

The complete lack of market presence is the main problem. Clubs need to get off their ar...s & shout about the game to anyone who'll listen and not let the RFU bully them off the park.

You have hit the nail on the head... Its advertising, and although we can blame the RFL for that in part, to a large part actually, we also need to look at what the clubs do on their own behalf.

I had forgotten...

We dont. Because we cant.

The RFL's job isnt to legislate against the idiocy of chairmen. It is to create an environment where clubs have the space and time, and opportunity to thrive.

Our aim should be to get the 14 clubs we have now in SL, up to the level they need to be. Some, i accept, wont ever make it, but they can be replaced by others.

Some may say that London isnt working, and in part (the getting people through the doors part mostly) i agree. But i dont think that means London wont work. Rather than giving up on London, we should be looking at why it hasnt work, and what we need to do to change that.

Similarly with Salford, we need to look at why Salford havent attracted the attendances they should and what we can do to fix it.

So we spend monies, which are very hard to obtain at this time, propping up clubs that can't help themselves?... How do Salfords problems sudenly become anybody elses to put right? We can't sustain 14 clubs, there is not enough money or talent to maintain SL at the level you would like. Please don't think that i would not like to see 14 strong teams, i would, but its totally unrealistic with the current structure...

Better Salford means better league, better league means more money from tv deal, better tv deal means everyone wins. We will always have that problem when we expand the league. We wont have 14 teams worth of talent if we only have 12 teams.

Salford and Sale won't merge, they should become one brand and look to either incorporating one of each others names or coming up with a new brand (Manchester <insert name>icon_wink.gif.
Come up with a new brand market together, work together, share ideas, yes it's not ideal but beggars can't be choosers.
Salford fans will go mental at the thought of changing to Manchester and/or merging with Sale but what's the other options, completely folding and leaving Manchester solely to Union. Bite the bullet because 50% of something is better than 100% of nothing

So having a number of hopeless/hapless teams makes for great entertainment? We need to sell a product, not run a charity for failed clubs, they can't be carried. A smaller league would mean games with more intensity, and help the national game too.

Sort yourselves out or hit the road.

And make the competition even more predictable than it already is

2 tier super league is the only solution to fix a litany of issues in RL

Top Tier - Wigan, Leeds, Saints, Wire, Catalan, Hull, Hull KR, Huddersfield, Bradford, Wakefield

2nd Tier - London, Castleford, Salford, Widnes, Leigh, Halifax, Barrow, Sheffield, Featherstone, AN Other (Toulouse/ Crusaders whoever gets the franchise.

This way, those ambitious clubs in championship 1 (the ones that actually stand out and should be considered for SL aren't excluded, and compete at the right level - lets be honest, Leigh, Halifax, Barrow, Sheffield, Featherstone, could all compete at the same level of London, Castleford, Salford, Widnes and the lesser lights of SL would not be bankrupting themselves to try and compete with the wigans and leeds etc.

To stop those criticising that tier two is a re-branded championship, all teams compete in the same league (20 team league like premiership football). This is the clever bit so stop with it...................

Each team plays home and away to clubs in their tier, and each team in their tier again - but this time 4 home, 4 away, and 1 neutral - magic weekend? on a drawn fixture list like the NRL/ or an odds and evens basis (27 fixtures). In addition, Tier 2 teams play only at Home to half the tier 1 teams each (an additional 5 fixtures at home to give a better chance of competing and five marque fixtures with bumper gates to market).

Wins against tier 1 teams equal 4 competition points (2 for a draw) - Wins against tier two teams equal 2 points (and 1pt for a draw) to reflect tier 1 clubs have a harder draw. This way all but one or two teams from each tier would stop in the top 10/ bottom 10 where they were expected to finish - with only the top couple of tier 2 teams, overtaking the bottom couple of tier one teams. Ie/ the weakest tier 1 teams may only win 9/10 games giving roughly 40 points, while top tier two teams may win 20+ fixtures giving roughly 40+ points.

Any tier 2 teams finishing above tier 1 teams at the end of the season swap tiers for the next year - giving those top achieving perhaps 2 or 3 tier two teams an effective promotion, a more attractive fixture list, and opportunity down the line to go for a title- as they grow in a sustainable way.

Top 5 play off for the championship. Every game means something - Every team plays at a level that does not overstretch them, on and off the field, and top teams are not held back by the lower performing teams on and off the field as they now are.

Franchising also stays with the bottom 2 tier two teams over 3 years potentially losing their licence to a championship team, which continues underneath, with only the remaining clubs which realistically would struggle to run in SL anyway, so don't feel unfairly excluded like fax and leigh do.

Totally agree Sale and Salford as a separate entity is an accident waiting to go bust. Both are struggling and no way could Sale run that ground on their own and neither could Salford. Both need to man up bite the bullet and merge like Leeds have done with Union, Cricket and League.

How come so many sides owe the tax man now.

Leeds had to delay finishing one of their stands due to a bill, Wakey, Crusaders, HKR are in trouble as are a few more. Now is this due to non payment of national insurance contributions when clubs look like they have paid some off shore. Difference is that employer is responsible for paying it not the player. So they get a huge bill especially if its back dated. I know Glasgow Rangers had 9 million bill for that practise just before they went into administration.

As for Bradford look at the quality of their squad a decade ago compared to the last 5 years that now looks very dodgy to me and if any club has done what i think they have then they should have been in breach of the cap. Would love to see what the tax bill is for to se if i am correct.

Why not reduce the number of clubs to less than 12? Clearly reducing the number of games, will get more money into the game - that would remove an average of ~34k tickets at the DW and to make it back it's just a ~3k increase in crowd figures over the remaining games. And Sky would have less games on TV, so clearly viewing figures would rocket for the other games to help with the lost advertising revenue.

Maybe just 10 teams is the answer, Wigan would just need a capacity crowd every game to offset the lost revenue. And just maybe this would hold true for all others.

Awww, why bother lets just make it two leagues of 5 - Yorks & London v's Lancs & France to play a parallel play off season with a State of Origin winners at the end.

But seriously - where has this view of shrinking the league come from? Why do people think it's a good idea? Less games = less money, less teams = less players exposed to the top flight, shrinking the sport will grow the sport, going back to semi-pro will increase quality?

Don't forget the damage that the Harris debacle Bradford, this for me was the turning point of the club. Legal fees + compensation put too big a hole in the club, fair enough Leeds had a case but did it have to go so far?

More predictable? How? All you're doing is stripping away the four weakest clubs. Yes the usual 4-5 teams will be in the mix for trophies at the end of the season but that would continue to happen with a 14 team league regardless.