The bigger problem is not the structure or the number of teams its the p*ss poor effort by the RFL to sell the game meaning there is a chronic lack of money in the game. whilst this continues the sport will carry on being run by the chairmen changing to the structure that keeps the most happy at that time.

A closed off super league with either 12/14 teams is imo the best option for the game, however its impossible to justify this to all the clubs when the RFL are reducing the centrally distributed funds because it can't get sponsors & just bows down to accepting peanuts from sky. The currently licensing system should have seen a more stable league with improvements across the board i.e. playing standards, number of fans, increase in money, etc in both super league & the championships.
what has actually happened is
The standard of games in super league has dropped off at the bottom of the league, I'd say 4/5 championship teams have a very good chance of beating Salford & London and competing with the likes of cas & widnes despite having a salary cap of just 1/6th, before the licensing system it was 1/2 teams had a chance of beating the bottom 1/2 teams in super league despite the salary caps actually been closer to each other at the time. (the lack of skill in monday's sky game was fairly painful to watch and this is two teams who have a good chance of making the play offs)
The number of fans in super league has possibly increased but the number in the championship has dropped off (massively in some cases)
The sponsor situation has been well played out in the press.
Some clubs still carry on spending more money than they have.
The number of community coaches has dropped massively.
and the list continues

so whilst I don't think changing the structure again is a good thing for the sport, not changing it could lead to much bigger problems; the top 8/10 superleague clubs thinking bugger this, supporting the lower superleague teams its clearly not working lets start our own league/sport. Championship clubs thinking bugger this we're getting less support/money from the rfl than before, our fans are getting feed up we can't get in the top leagues so lets start or our league/sport and/or lets just give up.

Leaving the sniping aside, I'd love this to work, in terms of bringing back P&R but I just don't think the league is strong enough to sustaining it. For reasons elaborated on already by others, it's hard to see anything but one or two clubs who "yo-yo" back and forth between the two tiers, being too weak and ill prepared for SL level, or being offered a parachute payment and cap (the cap alone probably isn't enough with small crowds and reduced sponsor exposure) which means that they will be far too strong for everyone in the tier below.

I hope I'm wrong.

I also still don't believe that declaaring there not to be enough players to go around and thus retreating into the heartlands to be the answer. Why do that instead of doing the hard yards at grass roots levels to increase the player pool. The former option (as espoused by my old chum Nantwich - sorry mate, I know you're not alone, you just always stick in my mind for some reason) reminds me of austerity economic politics. It doesn't promote growth, it just creates an illusion of efficiency , if you're lucky.

Finally, I've asked this in various places, but if this odd split into 3 tiers happens, can somebody tell me what it is that the teams in the second tier will be paying for, or why, in particular, the fans of the 4 bottom teams in SL are going to want to keep paying the same rates they were expecting to pay to watch Wigan, Saints, Wire, Leeds to watch Fev, Fax, Batley, Sheffield? No offence to those clubs, but their current attendances suggest they are less than marketable.

Licensing was only ever supposed to provide a better platform and more stability for the game to address its problems, not for licensing to actually solve the problems the game faced. The game addressed its problems, but only in part.

So the game has decided to regress to 12 team P+R, which wont address any of the games problems and wont give a platform or stability for the game to address them.

Frankly, it doesn’t matter which format we have if the game is ignoring its actual problems. Until the game addresses its poor marketing, poor visibility, poor facilities, poor youth development, poor PR, poor image, poor corporate relationships, poor management and poor governance it doesn’t matter if we have franchising, P+R, or something so amazingly brilliant none of us can even imagine it right now, the game wont move forward. The cut to 14 and the regression to P+R is disappointing because it shines a very bright spotlight on the fact we are looking for answers in the wrong places.

It wasnt the RFL. SL clubs were asked at a SL club meeting. They didn't have to agree. Huddersfield didn't. Hence the Craig Kopczak affair. At least Wakefield got fees for their players.



What is Bradford's payment rate?
What is Wakefield's? Why is Wakefield's rate so poor? Was it that rate putting their existence in doubt? Was Belle Vue under threat?

Once again, it's incredibly daft, and can only happen in the world of sports fans, for 2 very different situations requiring different responses to be criticised for responding by providing help in 2 different ways.

Oh, that's OK then.

“We had hoped they would accept our payment terms without advertising the information,” Glover added. “There have also been a number of CCJs against the company. Some of these are through disagreements with suppliers and others are through straightforward mistakes on our behalf. There have been nine in total, of which eight are now settled and cleared. We are still waiting for the final paperwork to come through for the last one and then it will be cleared off."

Erm, if you had disagreements with suppliers and they got CCJs then the suppliers were right and you were wrong Mr Glover. Sounds very shambolic.

1 of the CCJs was handed out the day prior to the interview he gave fwiw.