I'd like to see how their structure would cope with Promotion and relegation when they say "every four years you'll play team A etc.."- then we'd see how it's done!

I suppose the beauty of their system is that there is no promotion or relegation just 32 teams run by super rich owners. In a way it's not unlike the way we are going. Most people will admit that you can't run a profitable SL team that wins things without a rich owner.

They also have a player draft. That always amazes me.

Well, yeah they do, but they have thousands upon thousands of college students (often 'studying' sport..) who are so keen to play professional football that they'll offer themselves to anyone, anywhere, just to get a foothold into the game. Their college grounds are enormous and of high quality AND attract massive crowds to games. Soccer in this country couldn't even dream of that so, for RL, it's like something happening on another planet - no another galaxy!

Yep, take this season, coming out of college Myles Garrett was almost universally reagarded as the best player in the draft class, and would find a starting spot on pretty much any NFL team, so he was drafted number 1 by the worst team last season the Cleveland Browns. He has no chance of winning anything with the Browns, buts he's happy to go and be a franchise star in Cleveland (at least at the start of his career) - he'll probably get a big move a winning team in a few years if the Browns carry on not competing, and to be fair he is getting a $30m wage and a $20m signing on bonus over 4 years...

But that draft culture is so different, and works really well (mostly) for the NFL in levelling up the competition. But it helps when the weakest team in the league can spend $50m on one player! not really any fair comparison to RL!

It is a fair comparison though.

The NFL in anything like its present form only dates back to maybe 1922. The wisdom and actions of administrators between then and now have made it what it is.

You may say we're not the USA, and OK we're not, but if our game was even 1/10th the size of theirs, we'd be minted compared with the present penury.

You may say we don't have enough population or #whatever other excuse you want to swallow, but then just look across the globe at the NRL - Aus has much less population and of that, the main NRL areas are narrow yet they have also learned how to make a reasonably big busines out of their sport.

The blunt answer is that over here, the RFL have been rubbish at their job, and the game is on the bones of its arrrse, for which there is no excuse. Even in places like Canada, there are visionaries who can see the potential in the game, and are willing to throw money at it and actively go for it. We're sadly stuck with this lot. If you transplanted the administrators of the RFL into the NFL, how do we all think that would have gone?

I meant not fair in terms of the money and players available to the weaker end of the comps.

But you're right in that vision and leadership, and most crucially, following through on the vision has helped the NFL become what it is. We've had plenty of ideas and attempts at stuff in rl, but rarely have we really followed through with a long term strategy. At least that's how it seems.

We still don't even know basic stuff about 2018, like how many teams will be Competing in league 1? so we don't know how many home games we'll have. I presume the club must be running with the working assumption it will be the same as this year, but who's really confident in that?
That doesn't just compare badly with the NFL, that shambles compares badly with almost any organised sport across the world. How can any club in league 1 plan for 2018 correctly? Nevermind a club with no excisting squad in place. I'm surprised the club made any commitment on season ticket prices or numbers at this stage until we know the number of home games.

Well maybe Cha-Lo is making it up as they go along too? It seems so. They weren't even sure how much central distribution they were getting last week (£75k not £150k).

They don't think they've a case to answer with these current and former players and staff but can't know for sure.

They've no idea what discussions have been held between the RFL and BMDC over Odsal.

They don't know who the head coach is.

They don't have any idea what our fixtures will look like next season.

One of the main differences is that they are so good at marketing the game. The squads are enormous compared to most RL teams (not Bradford of the last 3 years of course), players are on multi million pound contracts and this is achieved on a fixture list that only guarantees 8 home matches a season. Shirts are also marketed by the league whereby the league takes a percentage of all merchandise from clubs. Regarding stadia: the top 10 largest stadia in USA are all COLLEGE stadium and they are also 6 of the 10 world's largest stadia.

I must confess those two things, taken together, had crossed my mind as well. How can we be confident that the dismissal case is nothing to worry about when they can't even figure out how much the central funding is before presenting their plans?

I might just be jumpy because we constantly had Marc Green assuring us that the HMRC were 'in error' in their claims on the club...

One of the most galling examples of abject incompetence is that sadly I'm old enough to remember when the amateur RU was pretty much a shambles and of no competition to RL.

Then they went fully pro and got some serious people in to run it.

In a relatively short period of years they transformed RU into an economic monster, while RL stagnated and look at the difference now.

Yeh you can say a lot about HMRC but they're not famous for their errors in calculating the tax due!

In terms of worry, if a few dozen cases are progressing through the employment tribunal then each will need to be individually assessed and dealt with by lawyers and this will cost in total approximately an arm and a leg. None of which costs anyone is ever likely to get back, even if we "win". So if I were paying to fight the case, I would certainly be worried, unless someone's doing it for free. Which isn't likely.

You'd assume so, but that just makes it worse, as obviously presenting 3 separate cases, and then presenting the defences of 3 seperate respondents, is going to take pretty much three times as long as it would just against us, and so probably double our representation costs at least. Great.

Agreed. I worry for the future of the game.
It is quite possible that the Catalans may be playing in the Championship next season. I would bet a few quid that the Union authorities are alive to that possibility and have contingency plans. When I visited Perpignan in the early years of Catalans it was a Union city. Perpignan RU were a top French team playing in the top league and European competitions. I'm sure the French Union will be prepared to invest in their game in that area and exploit any League failure.
Whilst the top administrators now receive remuneration packages previous regimes could only dream of , they have, for example, stripped the development departments of regional coaches.
. The Toronto owner has funded his enterprise without any help from the centre. In North America there are 100's of young athletes coming out of college every year who will not find a place on an NFL roster. Why not employ some RL coaches to tap into that market.
All your points about the NFL are valid. And a draft system is not unique to American Football or indeed American sports. Aussie Rules has a draft of young players ( based on similar principles of last picks first) which is not based on colleges/ educational establishments but on junior/ community clubs.