Add a few SL clubs to that. For a few clubs, take away the Sky money - strip that away and what you are left with is a Championship club. I'm not saying Championship Clubs can make the step up but £1.2m sure does help with the gulf my friend.

They will be on the 31st March

Why should Lincoln , a city with a local catchment of 250,000 not be considered big enough for the Premiership if they won promotion on the pitch ?

There's a more recent actual example - Blackpool! Who would have denied them their season and probably a season next year?

The governing body are very inept of promoting the game. They make up rules then manipulate them.............just look at the Hull K R model.
The good of the game never gets reported by the media, only the bad side of the game gets column inches. The governing body just sit back and appear to be quite happy in the Sky Goldfish Bowl, until they pull the plug that is.
The game in super league has been asset stripped, by way of home grown players and ground ownership.

Yeah yeah yeah, take your crap comments elsewhere you stupid plum.

No, I've never said that. The population of the local district doesn't have that much to do with it, I doubt there are any top flight sports clubs anywhere that draw support exclusively from the surrounding town. But it's fair to say that places like Hunslet and Whitehaven will probably never really be able to support SL clubs, for various reasons. There isn't that much potential for more growth with clubs like that, probably not enough to ever get them up to Super League level. Whereas clubs in other places might have more potential.
Agreed. But the Super League clubs are currently in a better position, if for no other reason than they have the money and infrastructure in place to compete at that level. Replacing them with new clubs for the sake of it wouldn't achieve anything.

So if Roman Abramovich bumps into some Haven lass and decides it's the place for him , they should be denied , even if they can only get attendances of 2,500 ?

No, every case should be judged on its own merits, I don't know why you are expecting me to instantly dismiss or accept such a hypothetical and unlikely situation. If Abramovich bought Accrington Stanley they would probably be in the Premier League before too long. Does that mean Accrington Stanley are currently big enough for the Premiership, or ever will be in the forseeable future? A billionaire taking over the club is an unforseeable event. Your example has no relevance to anything and really I don't understand why you have posted it.

The point being , you are deciding who is ' big enough ' and who isn't , but the world isn't like that , and yes you are correct , Mr Abramovich could get Accrington Stanley into the premiership , but he'd have a harder job getting Haven into SL

Wakey had two interested businessmen , one the man who now owns them and another apparently worth well over a hundred million , he lost interest after a meeting with the RFL , now what do you think could have happened to make him lose interest ?

I would suggest he asked them two questions

1 are Wakey liable to lose their licence ? , answer yes

2 is a Championship club guaranteed a SL place in 2015 ? , answer no

Businessman worth hundred million walks away

Licencing has taken away any chance of investement in a Championship club

I've not decided who is big enough. But barring a miracle like Abramovich taking over, certain clubs will never be big enough, that's just the way it is, and debating that as if it's a realistic and likely possibility just seems like a waste of time.

If a millionaire walked away because there were no guarantees that Wakefield would be in Super League regardless of whether they were good enough of not, then he was probably another Leighton Samuel character and the type we don't want in our game. Do you honestly think that the RFL would simply ignore a Championship club that was owned and properly run by a man worth hundreds of millions? Of course they would be a strong contender for a Super League place, providing the owner was in it for the right reasons. Are you trying to argue that they should have guaranteed him a Super League place for 2015, and isn't that exactly what you criticised them for doing with Samuel and Celtic Crusaders? Or is this different because Wakefield are a 'traditional' club and Celtic were not?

I'm not sure how you can blame licensing for a lack of investment in Championship clubs. As you constantly remind us, most of the Championship clubs aren't very attractive prospects for investors. I can't remember people queueing up to invest in these clubs before licensing was brought in, and certainly it hasn't hindered the likes of Widnes and Barrow, both of whom have attracted investment in recent years.

So what are the ' right reasons ' ?

Yes Championship clubs are not as attractive as a SL club , they never were and I havent ever suggested any different , however licencing has taken away the very last chance most clubs have of ever attracting that investement , and also at the other end , there is little to attract your average fan with no future outside the Championships

Yes Steve O Connor has got Widnes into SL , then again there are those among us who would suggest he was promised a SL spot 3 years ago , as for Mr Johnson at Barrow , lets see how long he is around after this licence application fails and there is no guarantees afterwards

Much like Mr Samuel was. IMO our game is on borrowed time

Because they want to invest in the sport and club long-term, rather than making a profit or having a bit of limelight and a plaything for a few years and then dumping it. I think it's pretty obvious what the right and wrong reasons for investing in a club would be.
As Widnes and Barrow have shown, no it hasn't. Just because your club doesn't currently have anyone wanting to invest in it, doesn't mean that no club will ever attract investment. I don't know why you are pushing this point when I have already illustrated two examples of clubs that have attracted significant investment during licensing, and also when there was hardly a flurry of investment before licensing.
It's funny that you are now making the same paranoid claims about Widnes as you were doing about Celtic Crusaders when Widnes were denied the first time. Why would the RFL have promised him a Super League place 3 years ago? What would the logic in that be? If Johnston sticks around at Barrow or not remains to be seen, but you can't use something that hasn't happened yet to try and back up your argument, they weren't a club with SL ambitions when he took them over and there's no evidence to suggest he will walk away if Barrow aren't accepted this time. I don't know where you have got the idea from that Super League will forever be a closed shop after 2012. There are no 'guarantees' that any team will get into Super League, nor were there any with P&R. Licensing provides a much safer environment for investors to put money into Championship clubs, since if they are run properly there is no risk of the team not performing on the field and the money and development going to waste. I don't know how you can argue that P&R was a more attractive system for investors, it clearly was much worse.

A profit

Why would they have promised Widnes a SL spot ? , clearly because it was a total disgrace that they told Widnes that the administration would not prelude them from applying , and then use that very reason to refuse them

This time there was a guarantee , there has been since SL was started , that now ends

Investors dont want ' safety ' they want glory , do you think Simon Moran wants ' safety ' ? , did he bring Andrew Johns for safety ?

Yes when we had P and R an invgestor knew exactly where they stood when they got involved , they knew if the stadium was good enough as the rules were plain , then they knew if they won the GF they were up , simple as

SL will become a closed shop unless a club implodes financially , unfortunatley the clubs below will be that weak there will be nobody to move up , therefore the whole game will suffer