I think that's a key point to be honest.

They need to prove they can sustain it and be a long term part of the competition.

I think the south of France have proved they have an appetite for Rugby League always turning out too see their national side get tonked by the top 3 national teams.

Who were Catalans pre 2005? Now they are an established top 5 club in terms of team quality and support putting historic clubs over here in blighty to shame

He said WMDC and the fact the area doesn't have a pro Football or RU club. Both figures are for the Boroughs, it was the easiest way to compare tbh. Don't know about Warrington but if you take it a step further and take out the smalll towns where people wouldn't say they were from Wakefield, like Cas, Featherstone etc, you still get around 240,000 people. It's bigger than you think Wakefield. Figures are on WMDC website for what it's worth.

As for the OP, I think letting Toulouse into the Championship and building from there is the best for all parties. it gives them a chance of SL if they can develop players and infrastruture and then that gives local guys a hope and a pathway to playing Pro RL. It'd be interesting to see how they'd get on with some cash behind them.

For the love of Taylor Swift - I've heard it all now !

It may be clear, but it is not fair and won't be until all 24 clubs in the system are allowed to spend the same cap.

.... and are given the same amount of central funding.

That's never going to happen really is it. Sky will screen 6 championship games next year, they aren't going to be funding a competition they don't really want to screen.

hang on, room for one more,
Wakefield and the surrounding area ARE small potatoes..period. Whatever it is you want to whine & ball about it the FACTS speak for themselves. There's no money in Fev or any other prospective team from that Urban district that is catergorically clear from the various sources (the main one is from Wakefield itself as it happens).
The populace of Wakefield 'city' isn't even in the top 50 of the UK and the wider regional district it is 19th within England, so your figure of 11th is boll@cks, this is from the 2011 census data.
Any fan from any sport can see that moronic la-la land 'our team/s are a MASSIVE asset' nonsense is just that, the stupidity of your post is a massive low even for VT...
Tolouse is a hugely more worthwhile investment by the RFL than any team in the Wakefield district..

As for Hull, don't know what that anything to do with the conversation, me, I don't live there, I live in the affluent Shires, we rarely do sweaty sports doncha know, just fox hunting on the sly and baiting narrow minded Northerners..lmfao

I agree.....Toulouse do represent the possible future of French rugby league and should therefore play in a French competition. Artificially promoting them to SL will end in disaster an further marginalise our sport.
If they want to play with the big boys then let's see them invite SL clubs over for preseason friendlies and see how they go in the challenge cup. As it is, Catalan enter this coming season as reliant on imports as they were 9 seasons ago......there isn't enough decent talent in France for 1 side, let alone 2

Leave Toulouse in the FRENCH league....or better still, Wigan Warrirors play in the Le Championnat de France de Rugby à XIII I'm all for that !!!!

It is inevitable. Cats are financially sustainable and competitive on the field. Their crowds stack up with the top 1/2 of table and their ground is decent. they tick all the boxes of a successful SL club. If Toulouse can match that then they should be in. Not because they will make France stronger (that will take a lot more French players in SL and NRL), but because they will make SL stronger. Its no surprise that Union and NRL is moving more and more to multi national leagues, eventually NFL will as well. Its a global world and sport is now a global commodity.

here he goes again, hold onto your flat caps people!

NZ$3M, so what? Thats less than 1.5M Sterling!

The union troll up to his old tricks again. Must lead a pretty boring life down in NZ.