C'mon, all this IMG $h!t is just not right what they're doing. Blimey! It's gotta stop now.

That is a problem, I agree.

However, the alternatives also have problems - as we have seen!

Why not do two divisions, SL is 14 teams - 12 based on the points system and 2 expansion clubs and put London and Toulouse in there and give them 3 seasons exempt from the points structure and invest in them. So you’ve got the league running as normal plus a development drive for the two most likely teams to do something. It clearly worked for Catalans over the years. Add in little marketing points and have Catalans play Toulouse home and away for 2 weeks in a row and call it El Classico, so everyone knows a particular 2 weeks in June or whatever it’s El Classico over there (El Classico is what they call it when Real Madrid play Barcelona) and then the week after have an international friendly France V England over there so you’ve got like a month of Derby’s over there. Have an international tournament like England v Tonga or whoever but play all 3 games in London, play at Arsenal Tottenham and West Ham the whole series and just try and add things to the comp to grow it down south and in France, do something radical and stick with it.

Hull KR - Grade A

It should always be P& R with the promoted club having a year's grace to help them build. All this spreadsheet nonsense is preposterous.

While it’d be nice to settle on a system (any sensible system), we’ve tried everything and the problem is trying find something that works for such a diverse set of clubs - in terms of their resource and (related to that) ambition.

The “with the promoted club having a year’s grace” thing feels to me like an admission that P&R doesn’t really work well either.

I like the simplicity and clarity of P&R. A club saving themselves by buying LED advertising hoardings rather than winning a crucial game would feel very odd.

On the plus side, lessons do seemed to have been learned from the last time a system similar to this failed.

As the economy continues to crumble, perhaps we’ll return return to a more level semi-pro playing field in the coming years. Every cloud!

Why?

you’re providing an exemption because straight P&R means promoted clubs are often not well prepared to step up.

And that’s even before we look at the significant dislocation caused by the R side of the equation.

You could smooth the cliff edge by increasing distributions to Championship clubs… but not by much/evenly, without pushing SL towards semi-pro.

They're not well prepared hence 1 year grace to help them build their club.
The 11th placed sl club would be relegated with a parachute payment.
It's never been tried, so we can't say it won't work.
This IMG Farce belongs in a circus with its clowns.

I understand what you’re suggesting, and it’s not the worst idea ever. Equally, it wouldn’t give me much optimism. It’s just a variation on a theme, swapping issues with that for different ones. The 1-year grace thing is an ugly bodge (imo) and parachute payments are (imo) unfair on the rest of the Championship.

It’s really easy to pick holes in any of the options, because they all have them. Licensing the first time round raised suspicions that it was kinda bs, and those suspicions were ultimately confirmed. The 8s thing was okay as an idea to even out the bottom end of SL and top end of the Champ but I think the level of jeopardy/uncertainty was underestimated.

So far the IMG proposals seem internally consistent. That’s about the best I hope for from any of these ‘solutions’.

Down to opinions i guess.

The problem is a lot of clubs don't invest without a gun to their head. There will be chairmen out there saying that there's nothing wrong with handwritten ad boards...but that means the game doesn't get as big advert revenue.

Build… build what exactly? It’s not like they’re gonna bring through a generation of youngsters in a season.

Could they not start to recruit well before the end of their first season? And then build on that to give them a chance?

It's ok for you so long as nobody else gets a chance to improve.

You're just a Selfish, Sanctimonious, Supercilious, Narcissistic Leeds fan.

Its interesting to see Union are currently having a right kerfuffle over promotion and relegation or franchising.

Top flight situations are different Union has got big income but the clubs have spent it all and salary cap has gone up and up. But in the 2nd division its similar to League lots of small clubs with small fanbases and poor grounds. In recent years theyve blocked Jersey and Ealing coming up. Wasps and Worcester have also fallen from grace and find themselves in the lower leagues, similar to Bradford.

Intruiged what strategy Union goes for and if its similar to our IMG approach.