Hmmmmm

Who didn't see this coming.

No London nxt year in superleague, or a ploy for Brentford to get the club on the cheap???????

It would seem their long suffering owner has pulled his funding, as he has threatened to do for a while......

Don't know how to create a link but it's breaking news on sky sports news at the mo.

It looks like one of the following to me:-

a) typical under hand business move to clear the club of debt to enable a new owner to come in.

b) a pre cursor to the club closing down as business. Then a completely new club is formed in the capital or we have a 13 team superleague or a team from the championship are promoted or Toulouse join.

Brentford RLFC ??????

If they are going to start again they will struggle for players according to their board they only have a hand full (max 6) of players on in preseason which they have organised them selves.

Feel for the remaining people at London. With only 6 seniors on the book, 3 members of staff. They have 15-20 academy players.

That aside, if like to see Krasniqi and McMeekan at Leeds.

Where have the rest of their senior squad gone?

I would really like to see RL work in the capital. I hope somebody can build a strong club there at elite level. I read a lot about good things happening at junior levels.

2013 Midseason - Out: Craig Gower (Newcastle Knights)
2014 Out: Jamie O'Callaghan (London Skolars), Jamie Soward (Penrith Panthers), Mark Bryant, Chad Randall, Chris Melling (Retirement), Tommy Lee (Salford City Reds), Luke Dorn, Scott Wheeldon, Michael Channing (Castleford Tigers), Chris Bailey, Antonio Kaufusi (Huddersfield Giants), Dan Sarginson, Tony Clubb (Wigan Warriors), Ben Fisher (Retirement), Matthew Cook, Oscar Thomas, David Howell, Liam Colbon, Alex Hurst, Michael Witt, Mike Bishay, Mason Caton-Brown, Shane Rodney, Michael Robertson, Shane Grady, James Woodburn Hall, Harry Little, Iliess Macani (Released).

As much as both the RFL and Sky want a RL presence in the capital, it is simply not sustainable. 58% of London's residents are from a non-indigenous parentage, and therefore less inclined to follow or be attracted to RL (please don't take that as a racist comment as it isn't - RL has always struggled to attract both players and supporters from immigrant back grounds).
Also London has a million and one other sports/pastimes/activities that a non-established sport has to compete with.

I've said it for years, RL is a parochial northern sport – always has been, always will be. Every attempt to expand the sport at an elite level, beyond its established heartlands has been futile. London, Wales, Paris… really, there is no point.

The RFL need to concentrate their resources on the pre-established clubs instead of these expansion follies and stop wasting time and money on non-starters.

I know Danny Ward's down there assisting with some youth project....

...anyone got any XXL playing shorts?

I don't think it needs to be restricted to a northern sport at all. I agree to an extent with your point on London, but don't agree on the geographical argument.

Wales, Bristol, Northampton, Nottingham, Leicester, IMO could all make it work in the long term, and if we put as much effort into areas like that as we have with London.

I am cheesed off with this though. London must have known their intentions as much as two months ago, yet they wait for the week of the announcement of the fixtures to announce this. They don't have a squad of players, so how on earth, even if financial security is found, are they going to be able to compete next year. Either we need to go with 13 clubs next year, or we promote Featherstone, Halifax, or Sheffield. What does it matter for them as the bottom two are going back down in 2015 anyway. So what do they have to lose.

What about the Skolars? Could they be the saving grace of rugby down south. From what I hear from colleagues in London who have children playing for them they're very well run and the area they sit in has had a big resurgence in following RL.

The reason I think RL could work there is that it's in a poorer area. Let's be honest RL is a working class sport. The Broncos were trying to do well in an RU hotbed just outside the rather exclusive area of Richmond. Also couple in with that to commute from the north east of London where there's a lot of English and Australian RL fans to the south west of London isn't that cheap (when you consider the higher costs of living in the capital) and probably takes you over an hour too.

Agreed.

I am also not altogether happy with just accepting that "immigrant" communities don't play RL. Doesn't feel like an intractable problem to me.

The entire game is set up for the best interests of the majority of clubs. The majority of clubs happen to be in a pretty small geographical area, so we set ourselves up to try and overcome the problems they face.

London are different in pretty much every way, and the set up we have clearly isn’t working for them. The pretty obvious reason for this is that London don’t face the same problems as everyone else in SL, so having a league set up to solve problems London don’t face but everyone else does is clearly never going to work for London or any expansion club.

London needs to be treated differently, it needs different help and if it gets it they will be a success.

What help though?

Catalans made it work, and without the same help London have had, and for me one French team having to travel the way they do is much harder than a London team.

The league should be set up equally, without any one team treated differently to an another.

Perhaps the only way to make London work, is for the RFL to own and run it it's self? I don't know. But I do know that too much time has been spent on it to be where we are today. I am confident that other areas of the country (not restricted to the North) would have been a success with the same help.

We still have to sort out for next year, and it is clear to me that the league would be better for London not to be in it next year. Whether that changes for 2015, so be it, but at present London are not in a position to play super league next season.

I think Catalans are different, I think anywhere else in the country would be different. London have some unique challenges to overcome and I just don’t think the game is set up to help them do that.

The Salary Cap and overseas quotas for instance effect London differently to everyone else. London need to pay a premium for every ‘heartland’ player they sign, its not necessarily about them signing the big names, but even a relatively mediocre player would command large wages just to make it worth their while to move to London. That means not only do they take up more cap space but they
Actually cost more in cash. London are in a weird position where they can get a pretty decent overseas player for less than a pretty mediocre British player. That’s just the issues they see with players, never mind everything else.

Personally I think the RFL should investigate getting a London side in to bed with Brentford FC, and even if they have to become part owners get involved in the Lionel Road development and use it as a hub for ‘london rugby league’ not just SL but the amateur and youth stuff, aswell as international. Then if the RFL needed to take over the project I would give them a 25% increase on everyone elses tv funding, flood the place with development officers, give 49% of the club to a trust set up for the benefit of London Rugby League, and take 51% tell Gary Hetherington if in 15 years, London are playing in front of 12k crowds with a healthy youth development programme and a sustainable business plan that 51% of the club is his. If they can find investors for it, all the better.

With regards to the other parts of the country, yes and no

The fundamental issue with us expanding to other parts of the country is that these other parts of the country don’t have people willing to stump up the money like David Hughes was, maybe the RFL could push a little bit more, see if there are people in Nottingham, Leicester, Sheffield, Birmingham etc willing to fund an SL club.

The problems that any team outside of the heartlands faces are the same regardless of the level when they compete in leagues with heartlands teams. It being London just makes the situation even worse.

The problem is there just aren't enough people laying rugby league to make it sustainable outside of the heartlands. Once you move into Notts / Derbyshire it becomes harder to get a player. But pretty much every player you get will be from a Northern team, and will have to relocate or travel. they will also want more pay because they are going into a bit of an unknown.

For me, expansion needs to be done gradually. Get Sheffield big, get doncaster big. Then see what lies beyond. If you have loads of people watching and playing RL in Shefield then clubs in Notts / Derbyshire / Leics have some RL close by to play against and watch.

TBH though I think it may be a bit of a pipe dream to expect a SL team in the midlands in the next 20 year unless someone drops a huge wad of cash somewhere.

Nottingham has two big football clubs. It has a sucessful cricket team. Then there is Ice Hockey, which is next in the list. There is a mediocre RU team which barely gets 1000 fans. RL would be 6th in the list of sports people would watch.