We seem to be heading back to the 90s with all of these proposals and add in getting rid of the salary cap and this sport will go into freefall. No one wants to see one sided games with maybe three teams in the mix for all the honours and the rest making the numbers up.

I wonder if anyone has asked Sky what they want, because without there wad of cash this sport is bankrupt. The proposals will drive away people investing at a crucial time, what is the point in anyone investing in clubs with possibly no future in SL long term. How many clubs are actually running at a profit again and how many are close to going under.

This sport needs stability the thought of yo yo clubs, parachute payments is a recipe for disaster. History has shown us the promotion to the SL can be the poison chalice and it has nearly been the death of more then one club. The simple truth is the sport can not support more the around 10 - 12 clubs at the top level. We have neither the finances or the players and these proposals do nothing to tackling either. Its the RFL knee jerk reaction instead of facing that the sport is a minority sport with limited appeal.

The current system is not perfect, but it started to a take us all forward and some people are living in the past. The world as moved on and franchising happens in most sports now, the NRL should be a model for us to follow.

I'd agree with most of that, except to say that it is the clubs driving this not the RFL. The clubs voted that the current system couldn't stay and it'll be clubs that vote on which new system they want.
The fact that most clubs couldn't organise a p|ss up in a brewery should be a worry to all of us.

If we are going daft ideas why not just pick the 20 strongest clubs
Divide them into East and West divisions 10 each
play each team once.

Top 4 in each play each other in go into another league system to decide champions.

12 lower teams get more games to get their receipts up, play for a cup similar to Northern Rail, bottom 1 of 2nd league go down.

small clubs play with the big boys, have a chance to get big sponsors in, more of a chance of eventually competing with the big boys, less travelling beginning of the season keeps costs down.

Any flaws with that system

The same flaw they all have, money, and how to divide it up

Money shared out equally for first season, then given out incrementally dependant on league position the following years.

I am seriously starting to worry that my 3 year old son wont ever get to play RL.

i wouldnt worry to much about that rl will always be played

Spot on.

The proposal does allow for 1 promotion place from C1 to the 3rd tier each season, it jsut hasn't been given any publicity because SL is the main focus.

The proposal is that C1 as we know it will disappear and 2 new clubs (Coventry and ???) will be added to give 16 clubs in the 4th tier. The suggestion is that these will play in 2 conference-style leagues of 8 clubs each and the winners of each conference will play off for the promotion place.

The more I look at this, the more I dislike it. There are lots of detailed objections, but to kep it short, I'd go with two :

1) It's far, far too complex. Any system which can't be understood very quickly by the uninformed is losing the whole philosophy of sport.

2) There is an unmistakable sense here of the tail wagging the dog. These proposals seem to have, at their centre, the desire to find a way of giving a handful of Championship clubs a chance to access more of the money generated by the bigger clubs. That's a bloody stupid motivation.

A simple question

What has the RFL actually done to make licencing work for all concerned? , be it SL or the Championships?

I do understand the same question should be asked of the clubs

This is a fair question. The licensing system has flaws - as does any system - but it's important to note that there were signs that it was partially responsible for some significant improvements :

- There are several new stadia in RL which certainly would not have come about (at least at this time), had it not been for the licensing system.

- Similarly, the renewed focus on youth development which is producing a good number of increasingly well-trained and prepared players can, I think, be traced in part to licensing.

- One could even argue that the system has succeeded in protecting championship clubs from the sort of optimistic suicide expenditure which used to be commonplace, even if it hasn't wholly prevented SL clubs from losing control of their own budgets.

As in any walk of life, organisations and individuals will only comply with a set of rules if they think those rules are here to stay. If there's a chance they might be changed or disapplied, then there will be widespread avoidance. That, I think, is why there's no real progress on new stadia in Castleford and Wakefield, for example.

I'm not averse to addressing issues which crop up - there's a good case in point for a change to the youth age-group system which seems to have been rather royally screwed up in the last year or two - but the licensing system was designed to provide all clubs with a very clear understanding of what was required to participate as a minimum, while protecting overly-excitable boards from rolling a dice with the existence of their club. That sort of stability provides the ability for ambitious and well-managed clubs to plan and build, rather than guess and gamble.

This set of new proposals would throw that stability out of the water, and reintroduce the gambling, self-destruction and wishful-thinking of the previous era, without any real gains in terms of facilities or player development. It's crackers. I genuinely think the person who thought this up should be denied access to any decision-making position within the game.

I don't think "a handful of Championship clubs" have had any great influence on this.

More the lack of competition top to bottom and the financial position of the SL.

I haven't seen it asked (Sorry if I missed it) so here goes.
Does the new ideas (especially option 3) mean the club tie ups have to be thrown in the bin.
How can a comp that will suddenly involve all 24 teams allow for 2/3 of those teams to share a playing pool?[