Are you suggesting that SKY are concerned about how many players each club produces ?? Really ??
Sky are bothered about having something to broadcast, selling subscriptions and most importantly, selling advertising.

Do you think that they are in the least bit concerned about junior or academy development ?

To steal one of your favourite phrases, you made that up.

SL can insist that clubs produce X number of players as part of the "membership" of the league but, not Sky.

As far as "shipping in overseas players", have they (Catalan) broken any rules here ?

I think you got the first point muddled up. It's the Supereague clubs that are primarily keen clubs have a full player development system, this however involves SKY who provide money for the foundations that promote Rugby league in Superleague club areas. After that it's the clubs who agreed development then needed SL clubs to have academies, and then they started to sort out reserves as well

Before COVID It was going this wayMartyn Sadler that made a scathing criticism of the club reflecting the criticisms that English Superleague sides have of the club as well. Gausch rarely ever attends SL meetings even though SL bosses demanded he did to explain why so much money was thrown at Folau (again rather than developing French players).

To answer your question I don't think Les Catalans are breaking the rules, BUT nor do I think that if the Superleague chairmen who are generally fed up to the back teeth with them would be breaking any rules excluding them in 2022. As for SKY they don't want overseas clubs full stop, but as McManus said they will concede a couple if that means expanding the game with more players and more TV money.

Finally (and thanks for the debate) it has always been the case that the "expansion of the game" involves clubs who develop more quality players to expand the playing pool and develop more paying TV deals to pay these players . Proof positive came from Eric Perez who said he would do this with TWP. Obviously TWP did neither and were booted out. Thing is Gausch does "Neither either"

All questions, no answers.

What DO Catalans bring to the tournament? Make the case considering;

They don't produce players.
When they reached a major final, ticket sales were the worst ever.
The profile of the comp has declined since their involvement.
France RL are if anything worse, and do not bring any interest to the value of international RL.

I could go on and Donny has (at great length).

You think Catalans are good for SL. Please tell us. What are the positives?

Isn’t St Esteve, Catalans reserve team?

Only saints, Wigan and Leeds produce SL quality players. The rest shove a number 23 squad number on a random local amateur player to keep costs down.

Look at F Estebanez, more suited to RL, if B Guasch spent big on development of local talent 99% of the best will be bought by RU clubs, and with all the travelling involved, I don't see the point of having Catalonia in SL. Just have British teams. Have a good semi-professional French league, and lets see what new laws RU come up with over the next 2 years. Wayne Pivac said yesterday he's expecting quite significant changes, meaning the sport will go closer to RL. Who knows, maybe a few wealthy French guys will just adopt RL laws, or very similar ones, as they say, never say never.

Yes. I have mentioned this before on this thread I think. Might have been the other one.

Makes me laugh when people accuse Catalans of not producing players when half of SL and vast majority of lower leagues don’t. Some don’t even have academies? Catalans may not be perfect but they are damn sight better than some.

Someone accused Toronto of not producing players. How can you expect to produce Championship/SL standard players in 4 years in a country that’s hardly ever played League and doesn’t have a decent amateur game? Stupid point. I do concede that they should have done more with the camps and players such as Quinn Ngawati, Joe Eichner, Rhys Jacks, Monti Gaddis etc though.

France as a county are going to be nowhere near the levels of England/GB in terms of talent. Our player pool is so much bigger, more hotbeds of RL, better amateur system, RL didn’t get banned over here whereas in France it was illegal for a time. That beds into culture and a whole generation or two will have played something else which filters down to their kids etc. If RL was banned in this country for a length of time we might only ever see an amateur game again if it did come back.

If there was a rule stating that at least 6-7 of the match day 17 had to be home grown. Catalans would probably still get playoffs or at least compete. A number of other clubs wouldn’t. I’ll let you decide which ones.

No.

It's not really......It's a way of pretending Catalans have a development system.

Let's just think about this. Junior French RL is still played around the south of France. 30,000 people are supposedly registered as RL players, so there is a significant game there. After a few years once Les Catalans got established in Superleague they put together an Academy side and Les Catalans academy used to be a good side that could easily hold it's own.

Currently there are no "Reserve teams" so NO St.Esteve are not a reserve team, they are a club in their own right. I don't think if all SL clubs had to have reserve teams that they would get away with such ideas that Milford were actually Leeds "A" or Lock Lane were in fact "Castleford "A"........

If St Esteve were their reserve team then can any of us make a list of St. Esteve juniors that have gravitated to a first team Catalans jersey??? The thing is I can name you (and already have) an almost full strength Les Catalans side that would contain no French players at all.

It's glaringly obvious that Les Catalans have no player development systems at all and their owner simply buys in the best English and antipodeans he can, some like Folau at an enormous cost that could easily have kept Catalans academy going.........

The lower leagues are not relevant to the debate at all. Professional Superleague clubs are supposed to run player development systems.

Catalans do not. They came into the game on the idea that they were the club that would develop French professionals to bring back the test matches, so why do you ignore that fact? They actually did set the systems up at one time and they worked....so they themselves conceded the requirement so why apologise for them now they have dumped it?

The only comparable club without much of a development system is Salford who struggle for money and risk their own inclusion in SL. Folau's wage would cover a return of the Catalans academy. Go figure.

Toulose are set to follow Les catalans, do you think it great that if they did this they would boot the French lads out of their team for Aussies? Perhaps have a chat with John Kear about the importance of junior development, your own club support it even if you somehow don't.....

Are you suggesting that RL in France simply "surrenders" to RU ??

Every club that develops any player, risks them moving away to another club or Union or "down under".

I actually agree with Donny that each club should be developing a certain number of players.
However, you cant prevent them from moving clubs, it's not possible and it doesn't matter if we're talking about Catalan, Wigan or Castleford.
Each club should contribute to the player pool.

I find your comments on Union both interesting and disturbing in equal measure as you could apply those comments to ALL RL clubs and not just to Catalan.
As a sport RL should be trying to grow and improve but, despite having had 70/80 years head start over Union as a professional sport, we look like our decisions are being made by a few blokes in a small room at the back of the Local Working men's club.

As for RL in France becoming a semi professional sport and allowing RU to once again shove League into an ever smaller corner of France, I just despair.

French RL is semi-professional. I read a couple of months ago that there's less money in French RL now than 20 yrs ago. Suppose that's due to the 2008 GFC, if it's true. England have a really good RL team who could win the WC, France don't, England has a full-time RL set-up across the clubs, France does not. It's therefore far less likely for the best English RL talent to go to Union, I don't care if they change RL clubs or go to the NRL, as long as they stay in RL.

Also France is still traumatised by WWII.

I think you are well wide of the mark. I see Catalans as a 'real' team with history, and a good sized loyal fanbase that attend because they love RL not due to unsustainable cheap or free tickets.

Yes the travel means they won't ever take the largest crowd to Wembley, but the issue with Cup final crowds is the decline in neutral crowds. No team in SL can sell 45k tickets each to sell the place out, most struggle to shift 20k, neutrals are key and they have lost interest over the last 10 years or so (multiple reasons, scheduling on a Bank Holiday with poor travel options, loss of social clubs, amateur teams and who all used to fill a coach, launch of the Magic Weekend as an alternative RL weekend away)

I would like to see more French players come through, but they have to remain competitive and that means established British or Anz players are often a better option.

I would agree the French National Team haven't progressed, but that seems to be due to a lack of competitive games and some odd coaching choices (several British coaches with no links to France and not fluent in the language) it is not Catalans responsibility to fix the National side.

Well, for starters.

Expanding the footprint of professional RL
Excellent facilities and decent crowds
Attracted the largest attendance for any regular SL game (outside of Magic Weekend).
Attracting some star signings - Folou, although loved and hated in equal measure is certainly a world class player
First no English club to win a major RL Trophy
Somewhere different to watch SL

I too could go on but, it would probably be wasting my breath

IF RL was brave enough, just imagine what magic would be like held in the Camp Nou.

I know that Bradford aren't in SL (yet) but, Barcelona would be a fantastic place to go for the weekend and watch a major rl event and it would do more for the sport than staging the event in Manchester but, RL lacks ambition.
Certainly if Toulouse were to get the "golden ticket", a "Magic" event in Catalonia or France would be superb -covid permitting, of course

I'm not sure that Catalan (or Toulouse) are semi pro ??
As for less money in the sport over there, I'll take your word for it but, the same could probably be said for RL in the UK too.
It certainly looks like there will be less cash swilling around after the next TV deal.
Your comment about French players being more likely to go to Union is crazy.
If there were no professional RL players in France, any player wanting to make a living in "rugby" would have to go to Union to make a living and you seem to be advocating this ??

"Traumatised by WW11" and yet it is you who wants to wave the white flag for them
Btw, that's a shocking comment and not relevant to this chat, in any way, shape or form. Quite appalling.