Quote: Pumpetypump "
I also think that shrinking SL due to lack of available players and funding is such a self-fulfilling prophecy. The less clubs you put in your top flight, the less money you'll get to broadcast it and the less reach it has. I don't think dropping to 12 clubs was a cracking idea, and dropping to 10 would just be absurd.
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Hull Daily Mail seems to be lifting the lid on the restructure talks.
As it stands the favourite is the two leagues of ten clubs creating an SL1 and SL2, the other option not as well supported is the idea of a 14 club Superleague.
There's also consideration on the money split, if it went to 10 then the big powerful clubs might just share the lot.....But anyway talks are well underway.
Who knows how they would sort it, would league positions matter come the end of the year? If SL drops to 10 would they hand pick the 10 clubs from applications, or would they just relegate the bottom two, or even relegate the bottom three, so the top club in the Championship goes up??
14 clubs gives a Home and Away format but the third fixtures the top clubs get like Hull.v Leeds, Saints.v. Wigan. Wire.v. either of the latter would have to be dumped - so 14 clubs means the lower TV money is split 14 ways and some big third fixture crowds are lost to the big clubs.
My view is this will be all about the big clubs getting as much money as possible, and SKY may be happy with teams playing each other 3 times so it's looking like 2 x 10
Last time this came up ALL the clubs voted and the tail wagged the dog and 2x10 was thrown out on the votes of league one clubs and the smaller championship clubs like Batley and Dewsbury. I cannot for the life of me think the tail will be in any way allowed to wag the dog again.........
There are 36 clubs, but I don't think the French clubs vote so I can't see how this time if 20 clubs are going under the Superleagues wing, that the 14 clubs likely to be left out could do anything about it. If Batley and Dewsbury again took a stand they would risk being ones left out........