I suspect he has a point but its just the manner in which he goes about playing it out in Public.

The game needs a forward thinking businessperson who can lead the sport, develop a strategy to grow it and increase its profile and subsequent income. I can't imagine for one moment Wood and co thought 'let's take the game to Toronto', more he received a call from a wealthy businessman in Canada and entertained the idea. Sport is a business and relies on income from sponsors and television. That has to be the focus.

To me it appears he has tried to do it behind the scenes ( with some well placed public outbursts) and 4 years down the line has given up and is feels the only option is to bring it to a head in public.

Reading lots of RL forums, the general consensus is that N Wood has to go. Dr K has been beating that drum quietly and loudly for 4 years; Nigel is still there on £250k a year ( more than any SL player), flying first class to Dubai, Canada, etc so how long do you wait before doing what most RL fans think is long overdue?

Koukash's problem is that whilst he may be right that Wood isnt the right man for the job, he doesnt seem to have any idea who would be, or how we would find them. Its like everything else in the game, we are at a fork in the road some arguing to go left, some arguing to go right without anyone actually knowing our destination or even bothering to learn how to drive the car.

Ive no problem with Koukash going public if thats what he thinks needs to be done. Its the next thing im interested in, and the thing after that, and each thing after that. Getting rid of Wood has to be a means to an end, not the end in itself. I can't shake the feeling there are chairmen in SL to whom over-throwing the RFL is like a dog chasing a car. They are trying as hard as hell for it, but they have no idea what it is or what they will do with it if they get it.

Over several years, 5 IIRC. Which is nothing when there are very few other significant forms of revenue, the next biggest being government funding.

If we want development we have to pay for it, it won't just magically happen. We have to invest in development areas.

Personally, I'd take £300k off the tv payments to each SL club to give us £3.6m as a development fund from which one or two areas can be targeted with funds that might make a difference when spent consistently year on year. Rather than the scattergun effect we currently have.

Probably cheaper to fly 1st class than buy two seats

The leaders/people running the sport haven't being fit for purpose since the late 50s/early 60s
The sport has had opportunity after opportunity to become bigger and more attractive to the rest of the country and indeed the ROTW but failed absolutely miserably.
This down to self serving, self preserving, un-imaginative, unintelligent, unprofessional tools with next to zero understanding of pretty much anything.
There's always being a lack of understanding of market forces and lack of any ability whatsoever to exploit all the fantastic attributes the sport has always had.
Yes union has had some advantages of recent times but the sport was a complete backwater TV/media wise compared to RL for decades.

When you have the 2nd/3rd biggest attended domestic sport scrabbling around at last minute year on year for the main comp sponsors and giving the rights away for no money at all one year (and zero provable benefit from the in kind payment), when you have main events being sorted less than 6 months beforehand, with next to no promotion and so many other ongoing issues pointed out already then it's pretty obvious the people and set up of the organisation that runs the sport is struggling...and that is being generous.
Clear the decks from top to toe, including the disgrace that is the judiciary and the people/set up of the officials.
We can continue on and will do, the game won't ever die, I've no doubt about that, but market share is going to get ever smaller the way things are going and that will have a detrimental effect to the game as a whole from grass roits up.
It's facking depressing

I'm optimistic. I was at the rhinos challenge this weekend and saw 6000 people enjoying junior rugby league. Over 1000 talented youngsters playing and enjoying the game. The interest is out there.

We know the interest is out there, we were all optimistic after the last word cup. The rfl always find a way to make any opportunity come to zero. The sport is going backwards fast and something has to be done

That's 32m from the SL part of the TV contract. Not the international rights challenge cup etc plus they have all the other income streams they have. They get more than 6m a year from SL clubs. For an organisation who had sport England money taken from them because they were so bad at spending it its a bit of a stretch to trust them with more

Sorry but, to say that Union was behind league is just wrong.

Although the club game was perhaps behind league in some areas, the International game of Union, has been and still is so far in front of League that, we are in the metaphorical Vauxhall Conference compared to Premier League.
Yes, Union has massively exploited the revenue streams connected with this but, everything stems from the International scene and shutters down from this.
In League, we are trying to go the other way and we try to suggest that the "product" is so good, why shouldn't we get the same as Union but, in this respect, Union has such a head start on league that it is impossible for us to catch up, notwithstanding that it is the sport of the Establishment and like it or not, we are "just a Northern" sport and too many inward looking people are actually happy with this.

The second part of your post is spot on and if we cant do some of the basics right, we just come across as amateur and it's no surprise that we are not taken seriously.

We struggle to get a sponsor because we aren't an attractive market for sponsors. It's got little to do with the RFL in that sense.
The same goes for internationals or events. They're organised "late" because we don't have our own stadium so we're working around other schedules.

Re Smokeys post - the RFL had Sport England money taken away from them because the targets were unrealistic. And the Sport England numbers are compiled in a way that doesn't help RL (age 14+ IIRC).

Whatever way you want to look at it the RFL need more money. In 2014 their income was £19m. That's sod all with which to run a major sport including the RFL events.

If we want a better RFL we have to pay for it. As Bramley said, the clubs currently (and have for a long time) hold the prime responsibility for marketing, player development etc etc and they make the RFL look professional.

The RFL needs a bigger staff, a bigger base and better leadership to give it the teeth that's needed to push this game forward. Because the clubs sure as hell aren't going to do it.

£19m sod all?

What do they actaqlly use that money for? It's £18.9m too much for what they actually deliver!