A business built on a SPORT a sport with history and heritage, a declining sport with history and heritage! I Might add.

One of the many problems is that business has taken over our great sport, which in My opinion is why the sport of rugby league is declining, before long the likes of Bradford bull's and the other relegated clubs attendance will also fall, we need competition for places in the top tier, to keep the integrity of sport to keep rugby league growing so all leagues in the competition can offer contributions, so all clubs can independently thrive, without the club's where is the sport without the sport where is the business?

The RFL deicided to change the structure to the 8s because the same games year in year out were becoming stale, and they have brought a new lease of life to rugby league, going back would be a backwards step, clubs with ambition should always have a chance to be ambitus.

The problem is we need a middle ground, the RFL are struggling to find one, so maybe the problem is the RFL?

Big spread in this weeks rugby press in an interview with Nigel Wood on a few things concerning the game including any proposed changes.
Plenty of print without much being revealed.
It did say that a number of clubs were not generating enough of their own income and for every £1 of theirs the RFL were giving £10 from central funding.
It questioned whether this type of 10 to 1 ratio in funding could be sustainable when some clubs had attendances of only a couple of hundred and time could be running out for some.

In reality what he is doing is starting to make public the same "logic" that is used in the Premier League and in Premiership Rugby .....those that generate the revenue should keep most of it...

This has been the underlying theme since the introduction of licensing and will be the driver of any reorganisation in 2019. The RFL have recognised this but as with soccer/union, the Super League clubs, are in the driving seat and the RFL are clearly afraid of a breakaway. Which is now less fanciful that it was ten years or so ago as cash is harder to generate. We may even be more likely to see it than other sports as unlike soccer/union/cricket little income is generated for these clubs by international contests/internationals/test matches etc.

In essence it will complete the process of turning an established club like Fax, and many others, into support clubs (directly or indirectly) for a smaller elite. It only opens the doors for a club if they find a generous benefactor or a new club (like Toronto) that is supported by heavy investment.

Very sad for the sport as a whole.

That is a depressing and hopefully not a prophetic post Howard.

Inevitable.