I don’t think it is realistic to expect 15/16/17/18 year old kids to be moving to a different country, with a different language, for the fairly derisory wage our young players are paid.I don’t think it is realistic to expect 15/16/17/18 year old kids to be moving to a different country, with a different language, for the fairly derisory wage our young players are paid.

I think that NZ desperately needs a second team and they would have one if the ARL were not scared stiff that the Kiwis will win even more competitions if they had an increased talent pool. Given you are pro Perth then I am not sure you will agree with me

Having more French players in England similar to Kiwis in the NRL would help. You would hope Super League would have some sort of initiative for this in the future.

Back to France, 4 pro sides is not impossible in the long term but perhaps not the next decade or two. I would start off with getting it up to 2 with Toulouse. A club with great potential and would provide some great rivalry with Catalan. Anyway I am not sure who the third or fourth team would be, there are no candidates even near the correct standard at present.

In the end steel sharpens steel. If England want to compete against NZ/Aus then we need to have competitive games against our neighbours. So strengthening France and possibly Wales is a must if we wish to improve. This isn't going to happen with just Catalan.

You realistically need around 40-50 FT prof players in SL plus a decent standard 2nd tier to support a constant flow of new talent before either France or Wales is going to compete against the top 3. We are a long way away.

Not 15/16/17 yr olds perhaps, but nobody was suggesting that, 18/19/20 yr olds perhaps yes, if they are ambitious enough to want to be proffessional RL players

You will now tell us that by that age it is too late to make the grade

Because in most cases it is. Most players will make their debut at 18/19/20, Its ridiculous to expect that we would get a large amount of success if we are only introducing French players to a full time set-up at 18/19/20, they would be 2/3 years behind their cohort.

In a different league system, yes. In the current system no.

Why, because SLE is determined by the incumbants already in the league. When you say 3 more additional french teams in SLE, you are not just saying 3 in 3 out, because 3 out could be any one from a variety of clubs. So automatically before you get any further you can see up to 6 clubs voting against this just for self preservation. Then other SLE clubs need to be convinced of the financial benefit to them.

Take Wigan for example, they are fairly rich have no real need to keep lower teams, however ask them about the costs of travelling to France 4 times a year, (plus any playoffs or CC ties) rather than the 1 trip currently. Ask about the cost of losing away fans against the likes of say Widnes or Hull KR, where you are replacing what could be 1000's of travelling fans with less than a coach full. All that balanced against some possibility of SKY maybe upping their deal or another TV company maybe showing interest. It's too many maybe's for almost any club to be bothered voting for. UK based clubs bring certain financial clout, European clubs just bring certain financial costs with no certainty of any compensation.

If I had my prefered league system which would be divisional then you could easily add more French teams, as the only cost would be the reduction in % revenue from TV. If the proposed French clubs could counter this with some deal of their own, then you could have 4 French clubs tomorrow. Split the league into 2 divisions 8 in each, 2 french clubs in either division, job done. But that is as far aware as any other proposal there can be.

Why are you assuming three in has to also equal three out?

In fairness, 4 French SL clubs is over the other side of the horizon and can't possibly happen any time soon.
IMO this is where the sports governing body, with reference to the current professional clubs, should be taking the lead.
If we are to expand/ contract/ maintain the league, then is should be carried out in a clear structured manner, with the consensus of those involved.
As a sport, we seem to tinker with things quite regularly, ie nos of competing teams, new teams, play offs (and numbers within the play offs) and ok, if something
isnt working then dont persist for the sake of it but lets have some proper structure and work toward improving the game a a whole.
Dont just pander to the favoured few at the top of the tree but, look how to improve the sport as a whole, with open dialogue and clear goals/ targets.

It appears that there may well be a further French team in SL in the short/ medium term future and it also seems likely that as soon as one of the Welsh clubs
is strong enough, then they will be "promoted", but if this is the case, we should be brave enough to go public and find the best framework to allow these things to happen.

There will never be a consensus because clubs view on what constitutes the best route forward is based on self-interest not in the interests of the game. Even if there was a massive TV deal on the table from France and a real commitment to improve the game in France with 3 more clubs ready and willing to step up, with 3 new stadia, massive investment in youth development etc etc etc, and some clubs will vote against their admission because a strong French game, and strong French clubs would make other clubs relatively weaker.

£££££

?????

What's up with a British league. Can't understand the obsession with Europe. Toulouse was a failed experiment in the championship. If the SL clubs cared about player development, instead of scrapping teams to save money. Just stop the jolleys to France. Just a personal opinion.

This is the whole crux of the issue. What do we really want from the game of rugby league.

1) A northern based working class game.
2) A national sport takn seriously by the media
3) An international sport where there are a number of competetive teams (enough for a World Cup)
4) Or a sport played only in certain areas of England and Australia (plus a small part of Southern France)

I'll take an attempt at number 2. Maybe the last attempt.

I wonder what the cost of 27 cross channel trips for teams plus club officials costs our game....half a million?

Cue Nigels chums.

What is wrong with a Northern based sport, take it witch ever way you like Rugby League is a working mans sport, there are lots of sports in the British game who we cannot compete with, How many clubs do we have out side of the North, we keep telling every body who is watching on Sky during the games that its the best game on earth, in my opinion it is but like me & others we are in a very small minority, the international game is a joke, we played against Wales, then France, and then France again [Next week] against Wales we went through the motions and put a Cricket score past them, and then France, the reporters keep trying to tell us it was a lot closer than the score says, but for me the score dose not lie, if some chairmen got there way the mistakes of the past would count for nothing, they would get rid of all the clubs in the lower half of the league so they can fill it with so called expansion clubs, and pore even more money in to the black hole. I always thought when you grow something it starts from the inside and goes out words not outside in, the RFL need to make the game strong at its roots before they come up with more big hiders, and it all comes down around them