The OP pointed towards a prediction of Catalans, Toulouse, Toronto, New York and Perth (Australia) in SL within the next five years, which would mean 7 UK teams if SL stays as a 12 club league. It all sounds a bit wacky to have a competition playing games every week spread across three continents and 5 different countries.

So wacky, that rugby union has almost exactly that - teams in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Africa and Argentina.

Which clubs have used the marquee player allowance? How do you know only a few clubs have used it?

Hull used it on Pritchard, but currently don't use it.

Wigan I believe use it on Tomkins, and I think Williams (you can have two marquee players now).

Warrington on Sandow? Koukash pushed for it, but not sure Salford used it?

Wire probably using it on Roberts.
Saints are using it on Barba (and possibly Roby?).

Call it scaremongering if you wish but, there are 4 clubs mentioned in the thread title (including Catalan), which is 3 more than we currently have in SL.
Even if we imagine these 3 making it into SL, that necessarily means the loss of 3 British clubs and I'm sure that you are aware of some of the additional N. American clubs being banded about.
Scaremongering is not the objective here, it's to point out the bleeding obvious and to try to encourage people to think about what the future may hold, rather than just blindly accept that the course that we APPEAR to be on is the right one.
Of course, there are some bright people in the world and they may have this absolutely on the money. However, the point remains, is this the right thing for the game, the best option for Super League and apart from helping get RL established in N.America, which is an obvious benefit, is the "plan", the best plan for the game of RL ?

But there isn’t a plan. Other than some expressions of interest, nothing formal has been announced, let alone a 5 NA club & 2 French Club SL. They haven’t even decided what to do in 2019 yet!

So yes, you creating some imaginary league using various spurious assumptions to show a worse-case scenario is scaremongering.

Also, why would 3 British clubs be “lost”? Does your imaginary league structure not have P&R? Did the introduction of Catalans see a British club fold? What do you mean?

I think you’re getting worked up over absolutely nothing.

So, we have one of the most influential chairman (maybe the most influential) in SL predicting these clubs in SL, some would call this signposting and lets face it, there is no point whatsoever in Toulouse, Toronto and New York joining the comp if they are not going to make it into SL, absolutely none. For a start, without a share of Sky monies, they would be commercially blowing their brains out.
So call it imaginary but, as I say, there is just no point in them starting the venture unless they believe that they will make it into SL.
You mention P/R but, this doesn't really fit with expanding the game and it never has.
Although there were gaping holes in the franchise model used previously, there is no doubt that some kind of Franchise system, without the threat of relegation, is the right model for expanding the game.
Catalan may be in peril at the moment but, if they hadn't been exempt from relegation at the outset, they simply wouldn't have become established in SL and although they are hardly an expansion club, you only have to look at Leigh for an example of what may happen under the current system (or any other P/R based model) and this could possibly kill the ambitions of the new wannabe's.
You mention that we havent decided on the structure for 2019 and one can only wonder why ??
It's mickey poor and the sensible thing to do, would be for the RFL to come out now and say no change for next season but they will look at 2020 for any possible change and then have the balls to tell people what their ambitions are for the game and how they expect any changes to affect those involved.

& you are already a bigger D!CK than John Holmes !

Regards

Prince Albert

Honestly among the most stupid thing iv read on rlfans ever, your point is something like this......

Big clubs: “we need a marquee signing rule so we can attract star names to super league to get more people watching and drive up standards”

The league votes to allow not one but 2 marquee signings

“we don’t need a marquee signing because we can win the competition without it”

Just admit that despite the rule coming in standards haven’t shot up that much. The only true marquee signings since the rule had been in place are Barba, maybe Roberts and Tomkins and I remember the Wigan chairman saying tomkins coming wasn’t dependent on the marquee rule coming in. All this moaning about the salary cap for what ??? So Jimmy Keinhorst can double his wage. Before we up the sc clubs should be taking advantage of the marquee rule.

I can't understand any argument for the salary cap not increasing with inflation.

Also, re the expansion of SL, if and when it happens I think the idea would be to increase SL to 14 sides at least. One of the problems with SL at the moment for me is that its too small with too many repeat games. Sadly 12 teams probably is realistically the maximum the British game can support right now.

Is this the same SL that was cut from 14 clubs down to 12, just as few years ago, citing quality and shortage of players.
A "progressive" sport should always be looking to ADD quality.
There are some SL coaches and pundits who have been advocating trimming SL down to 10 clubs.
Peacock, whilst at Leeds, wanted this. However, since moving east, he seems more in favour of expanding SL
You say that the British game can only support 12 clubs but, where on earth do you think the N.American clubs will take their players from ??

I'd say P&R definitely fits with expansion. However, for P&R & expansion to work together there must be a strong 2nd Tier. Firstly because in theory the promoted team will be closer to SL standard, and secondly if an established club should drop down, the league is strong enough that they don't have to shrink too much & cripple themselves.

I'm not sure Leigh's ambitions have been "killed", they've been extremely active in the off season recruiting and have set themselves up for a shot to come straight back up. Rovers last year went down, dusted themselves off and managed to get straight back up.

So I disagree that Franchising is the [ionly[/i model to be used for expansion. I think both systems have their merits, however, with the current P&R system interest in investing in our league structure has never been higher.

But this debate is all a bit pointless. SL is owned by the clubs now (not the RFL), and we have absolutely no idea what they're planning on doing in 2019 let alone after that. The attitude of the clubs towards expansion might be entirely different to the RFL's. For all we know, the SL Chairmen may decide to leave it at 12 and shut up shop, we don't know.

Since Sl started, who have clubs ever signed (permanently) that were marquee??? Even the likes of Jamie Lyon came over here because of his baggage in the nrl. We are NEVER going to see the likes of Cooper Cronk in SL in his prime. The best we can hope for is seeing players like that at the end of there career in Sl, it’s nothing to do with money. As I said in the previous post paying Jimmy Keinhorst double isn’t going to do anything for the standard of the league.