Great post. Take no notice of Silent's utter nonsense.

In their first season under the guise of Gateshead Thunder they instantly came sixth in Superleague. How did TWP do in SL with three years preparation?

The limited investment money ran out for Gateshead/Newcastle that's all. The Current £Millionaire owner has the money, and lots of it, he also has the ground and the player development system.

He offers instant expansion of the professional game to magic Weekend land. Why put on a magic weekend to encourage expansion to the North East then completely ignore it and let phoney NA clubs in?Superleague should be challenged on why they ignore Newcastle as it's real expansion.

Well to be fair what has happened is that his "bid" has turned out to be both disappointing and unacceptable.

So the powers that be are running a review of whether North America really does offer the game " expansion". That may indicate if Livolsi can't come up with any real plus points for Toronto coming back then he could end up helping to kill off Ottawa and new York as well who were both riding on Toronto's coat tails.

A point well made by the excellent Man Of Kent on TRL.

Any such review as to whether TWP still offer the game expansion has to take into account that they are up against a very wealthy North American Rugby Union. It's no good people like Peacock stating stuff like how good it is for Superleague to be played in Canada. He forgets the quid pro quo is Superleague is no longer played in London.

And if all three phoney clubs were in Superleague then not only would Superleague be no longer played in London, it would be no longer played in Greater Manchester/Salford or Wakefield for instance. So let's just go the whole hog Jamie and transfer all SL licences to North America

It's only reasonable to ask as the precedent was set with Catalan.

If you were about to invest significant money, wouldn't you ask?

In Catalans case the RFL were in charge of Superleague and they were parachuted straight in to SL.

Toronto have had three years to plan this, came into SL with a light squad and then paid stupid money to get SBW.

They then pulled out and have lost most of their players and 2021 signings due to the money situation.

So we give them a full UK TV rights money share, no relegation for three years and then any points deduction is in name only how then would we treat the next ‘heritage’ club that has problems ? -12, down a league and verge them on bankrupt?

This would prove my point that Rugby League is the most cock eyed sport of all.... one which if this happens I will stop supporting .... because it’s just plain CRAZY.

Oh btw do we support the black lives matter recent rioting,looting and shooting two cops in the USA ?? It’s time for this knee thing to STOP too !!!

He's not asking, he's making it a condition of investing. That's his right as it will be SL's not to accept his conditions should they choose.

I personally have no problem should Toronto continue but my opinion is that as a club 'reborn' under new owners, they should start again in a lower division.

I understand your view point but I personally don't understand the punishment idea and what it achieves whether It's Toronto or any club.

Maybe it's time for a different approach. Bradford are the perfect example imo.

What you can't understand why there should be a punishment after the way they have treated their players, you could say it's theft of income legally they haven't a leg to stand on and what it achieves is to warn others of the same that the same would happen.

As for Bradford they got off lightly

The "punishment" is designed to try and prevent ANY club going bust and restarting the following week or month, with a clean slate which ultimately gives them a financial advantage.
Also, IIRC, HMRC took a very dim view of this due to it effectively being a "tax dodge", which is why football and RL brought in the additional "penalty".
It's almost unique though as, back in the real world, companies do go bust and effectively start again without penalty.

There has to be some disincentive for clubs going bust and a points deduction of forced relegation seems wholly appropriate.

The two answers to you (on the previous page) sum it up. It would be a very dangerous precedent if TW were re-invited to SL without serious sanctions and I am very much in favour of relegation, which even before withdrawing from the competition they were well on course for anyway.

I understand the deterant point of view but my view is that maybe another solution can be implemented because the current punishment imo doesn't achieve anything.

Bradford are a shell of what they used to be and you could argue the same of Widnes. Perhaps if a different ruling was applied these two would be a lot stronger. RL shoots itself in the foot enough as it is and this type of punishment hurts no one apart from RL.

Perhaps salary cap exemption similar to what the Nrl applies?

I think that you are significantly missing the point here.

If we are talking wrong doing, then, surely, racking up debts and not paying them off seems far more harsh on those that haven't been paid, than getting a points deduction or demotion.
The idea is not to run your business so badly as to not be able to service the accrued debts.

Things like covid, where businesses are prevented from functioning due to instructions from Government are somewhat out of the ordinary and this may cause multiple clubs to fail and you could say that this would be through no fault of their own. After all, nobody could have reasonably foreseen this coming.

It's absolutely right that there should be some additional "loss" for clubs that go bust but, wish to continue in the league structure and yes, the "new (re formed) club is likely going to find it harder going but, again, that seems reasonable.
It may be that they have, by not paying their debts, forced other suppliers to go to the wall or not paid their staff etc or, should we just ignore that fact.

Clearly the whole of Bradford would be utterly furious if TWP escaped such penalties.

[i"ROBERT Elstone has told Toronto Wolfpack to prove whether it is worth having a Super League team in Canada. The Canadian side has been given four weeks to redraw a ‘frankly disappointing’ plan to stay in the top flight.

The club has to prove it’s viable in its own right firstly but the question beyond that is will Super League be better off at some point in the foreseeable future from having a team in Toronto? Give us an indication that Super League in Canada makes commercial sense?”.[/i

So it's clear they are not re-invited and are challenged with coming up with the following

1. How can they be financially viable given Argyle lost £Millions and £Millions?
2. What can they offer to the game here?

What are your answers to these two questions Elstone poses of TWP?

So what are Toronto then?

It's clear they are not re-invited YET.

Until any resumbission is received and reviewed we await a decision.

As for the two questions above, they are for TW to answer. Not sure why you would think I need to provide responses.

Possibly because this is a discussion website, you don't "need" to do anything you were just invited to discuss the matter?