aussie mag Rugby League Review reports :

"stade francaise .... are looking at the possibility of fielding a team in the SL competition. the famous club, formed in 1883, wants to utilise their ground all year round and officials have been closely watching the success of catalans dragons in the SL. while toulose have been planning to play in the SL for a number of years, there is no question the FRL and the english RFL would like to see a team based in paris".

this would be massive for the game if richard lewis pulls this off

They'd have to wait a few years to even have a say in my opinion. You can't just say 'we're stade francais' and we're coming into SL'

If Stade Francais, Toulouse or any other club for that matter, are given special dispensation even to apply for SL in 2012, then the Championship clubs will break away and form their own league with their own TV deal.

RL isn't really even played in Paris. They don't care, so why do it ? It seems that the RFL and Sky are more bothered about having a few weekends away rather than doing what's right.

Who exactly are they going to do a TV deal with? What evidence is there of big demand for semi-professional RL from broadcasters?



Can you offer any evidence for this statement? It's obvous that the RFL and Sky have an interest in building up RL into a major sport with international reach, it's also obvious that this clashes with parochial interests which see expansion as a threat, but beyond that this story seems like pure speculation.

This tells us absolutely feck all from what we already knew. In fact it's pretty much the same wording as what we heard before.
I know you think the aussie press are some mystical force who's ahead of anyone else in the RL world Dally but i'm afraid that's a rehash of what we knew 6 months ago, simply page filler.

great idea, the last Paris SL club linked to another sporting entity was such a huge success how can it fail?

the guy that writes this mag has great connections to RL in france.

clearly they are interested in having a SL team and clearly the RFL prefer them to toulose.

if hull kr can make a comeback from the dead why not paris?

let them win CC1 and get crowds of 3500 then we will give them a go in SL.

ps HKR had 100+ years of heritage to rely on!

I would agree completely.
But there's absolutely NOTHING there that wasn't said publicly 6 months ago.
If he had such information surely he could have written about the 10/11 plans of Stade to get a club up and running.

Why? Because licenses until 2015 are decided in under 12 months

I'm with JB on this, pul in good crowds in Paris in the championships and you may get a shot in 2015.

if they (kr) had 100 years of heritage why did they go into administration etc.

putting them (paris) in the championship is probably not a bad way to prepare but then again if they want to throw them in straight away id be willing to give it a go provided :

1. its not at the cost of widnes who have earned their spot
2. they dont get any of the sky tv money.

if it costs the RFL nothing, why not?

How do we know the RFL clearly prefers them? Have the RFL said "we prefer a speculative story reported in the press over the other bids for licenses that don't actually exist at this time but we presume will be made in the next round of applications"?

A rugby League trip to Paris just doesn’t appeal to me. First of all the locals speak French of which I’ll never get a grasp of in my lifetime. The taxi drivers are in the same league as the Italians and Indians when it comes to recklessness. The food is alien to me and overall the whole place is too expensive.

But Dally.
Catalans are struggling.
Why would you jeopordise them now?