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Many of those places are football towns through and through. I was an advocate of Milton Keynes about 15 years ago but that opportunity has gone, with the MK Dons now established.

London may not have succeeded too well club wise but has produced quite a few SL players. It has expanded the player pool.

My concerns around expansion are that we're risking destroying clubs and their long standing fan base, community heritage and family tradition, and weakening UK RL overall, for expansion clubs which have mostly been proven to fail.

Once those clubs and that tradition is gone, it's gone. If a team goes to the wall, it's all lost forever. If we throw (for example) Widnes, Wakey, Salford and Hudds out for expansion sides, our already weakened UK RL community becomes weaker as fans and tradition drift away. That affects TV audiences, sponsorship revenues, amateur playing numbers, online engagement and revenue, and more.

The elephant in the room is that if we fill SL with expansion and international teams, RL in the UK will shrink, not grow, and that is a disaster.

So what exactly is the goal with 'expansion'? If we end up with Catalans, Toulouse, Toronto, New York, Barcelona and whoever else in SL...what is the goal? Because it seems to me you're replacing medium sized UK clubs for medium sized expansion clubs. You're simply displacing the fan base for a club that - as we've seen over and over - could vanish in a heartbeat.

Is the goal a disjointed and contrived 'international' Super League? Or is it to establish competitions in France, North America and wherever else and eventually those teams rejoin their national leagues? Because either way, RL in the UK will be smaller and weaker. And that's before even talking about what a decreasing audience and interest does to sponsorship, advertising and TV revenues.

Furthermore, half your home games with zero visiting fans and a quiet, dull atmosphere, and being unable to attend half your away games due to cost and distance is NOT driving the game forward from a fan's perspective - and we seem to be forgetting the game exists for the fans.

I'm all for expansion, but not at the cost of killing off existing clubs. A strong UK Super League with strong French and North American leagues should be the goal, with a Champions League-type competition to garner international interest.

Absolutely correct

Top post, absolutely correct

But by that logic then there should never be expansion because it is a great fear to take any risks?

You are forgetting that the great pioneers who started off this great game took a huge risk when they broke away from the establishment.

Any success is often built on a series of failure, but the success comes from the determination to keep trying!

Yes, there hace been many failed clubs, but look at the pattern. Those failed clubs were often rushed attempts.

who exactly has misappropriated funds? London, PSG and Crusaders received less than £30,000,000 collectively over 20 years......so who has been short changed? The likes of Wakefield are the real waste of cash.......£1.8 million a year spent avoiding relegation........major franchises and identifiable cities,,,,,not the likes of Salford or Widnes.....

The rugby league public care for clubs with history and tradition, not major 'super clubs' or 'major franchises'

The rugby league public voted leave and are ageing and becoming extinct faster than the T rex......if we don't evolve, we will die!


Richmond......London Scottish.....these were major union clubs up to the 90's.........the rfu stepped over their corpses on the way to being strong comp......we should do the same with the likes of Wakefield and not shed a tear in doing so.

Making the argument about age or political leaning really isn't going to strengthen your point. No one up north cares about Rugby Union no one down south cares about Rugby League

Really.....you have stats to prove this do you? Guess what...I have loads of stats that prove you're wrong, but carry on with your opinion......

Then your foolish ignorance is the problem.

It will always come back to the same choice: expand or die.

Print this off, drive to SL HQ and, like Martin Luther, nail this on Elstone’s office door.

only as a blueprint of what not to do....if you can't fill a 10,000 seat stadium then you really shouldn't be getting close to £2,000,000 in handouts each year.......RL fans.......and make no mistake, there are maybe 70,0000 of them left, are getting older and more selective as to where they spend their pensions....so it is time to forget pandering to them and to start finding a new audience.