From what I've read a fully pro French league is nowhere near doable, even with a TV deal.

Get Toulouse in SL for me.

What about the existing player base already playing for French teams? Can they not make the step up to a fully professional environment?

A TV deal doesn't pay for it all you're right (although I'm not sure how much NRL clubs receive relative to their cap), however, that's the whole point of commercial and ticket sales too. You could even have your own Magic Weekend in Paris or similar, which may attract British speccies too. And you make the salary cap at an affordable level so the equivalent of £1m in the UK.

Surely if you're also pushing for a 3rd and 4th team in Super League there must be something there to justify their inclusion, otherwise your above points just don't stack up and will not work for SL either.

People have whinged about England not having a player base on here but the inclusion of another French team further risks penalising that and restricting that. Similarly, some people are moaning about the French team not having enough strength in depth.

The only way to strengthen both is having two separate entities. Otherwise, you're going to end up dragging France up to a slightly better level and risk forcing England down to a slightly lower level with the Aussies even further ahead of the rest of us.

Sorry: but there's nothing IMO to justify a second French team in Super League from a commercial, spectator or wider game benefit point of view.

Ay? I may be wrong but don't Toulouse have a french ligue 1 football team? Who average 18000 fans a game. Rugby union is KING in Toulouse and I'm sure the RL team would struggle to regularly attract the 20000+ crowds the RU team get?

You say London is soccer mad? Yes I would say so but its also has a huge rugby union presence, you have Harlequins, wasps, two of the dominant RU clubs and the main factor is england RU is based in london. Toulouse RL will have exactly the Sam problem that the broncos have, having the city dominated by two other major (bigger sports) is the room for another professional sports team in the city?

Most fans won't even travel to the end of the m62 so what makes you think they are being asked to travel to France twice?

Great crowd and from what I hear a great stadium and town to visit. If they can show the financial security get them in I say.

It's an entirely different city that appears to support the idea of rugby league. The football team gets an average of around 18,000, the union team's ground capacity is only at 19,000. Thats a far cry from London with:
Arsenal av 60,000
Charlton Ath - 17,500
Chelsea - 41,500
Crystal Palace - 15,000
Fulham - 25,000
Millwall - 11,500
QPR - 17,500
Spurs - 36,000
West Ham - 34,500

London is most definitely a football city and is too big a place, in my opinion, for a club to appeal to the entire city. Toulouse isn't like that

If hull can sustain 3 prof sports teams I don't see why Toulouse with double the population can't.

If the french tv and toulouse do come aboard, i would like to see some of that extra money put towards the re-formation of the alliance league or u23s and clubs cant use that money for signing players but can only be invested in the junior and youth set ups, then we can do away with the dual registration fiasco

Where were all these 'toulouse fans' when they wre in the championship then? I visited twice with Fax and the attendance was 1000 maximum.

I do however think it would be good for rugby league if another French team were successful and well followed.

Don't kid yourselves about this 1 off crowd though!

And too add to that it wasn't even Toulouse that were playing.

Probably not interested in watching a bunch of small-time village teams, no offence.

Yeah, all those 20,000+ crowds Toulouse RU get in their 19k capacity stadium? At least get the facts right!

Toulouse is a big city with a lot of people. Perpignan also has an RU club if you didn't notice yet still sustains the Dragons easily despite being much smaller than Toulouse.

A Super League Toulouse club would draw 4-5,000 at the very least and possibly much more in future.

Most of the Toulouse Olympique fans hated being in the Championship. It just didn't work. Being in the Super League along with the Dragons? Different kettle of fish.

Having read through the posts I am starting to get angry, Who do people think they are wanting any team out of the league? who says we need to reduce the clubs in the top league? the answer you will find is the self interested chairmen at the top 6 or 7 clubs thats who. I would love Toulouse in super league I would also like to see halifax, Sheffield, Doncaster, & anyone else who wants to come in. But I dont want self interested club chairmen dictating who that will be. The league should keep expanding (& yes the TV revenue would decrease as it is spread thin) I would require each club to play 26 games a season (or less) we do not have to play every club home & away the play offs deal with that problem. American football is the model to follow. The only problem in my argument is most clubs we have now can't afford to compete & there is little sign of a rush of sponsors or TV interest.

The majority of French semi-pro players we have now are not of professional standard. An the existing semi-pro French clubs are struggling financially. That is why there can be no "step up" of existing French clubs and players to a professional league. The basic ingredients do not exist.

You won't attract high quality professional French or foreign players with such a low salary cap. (especially not converts from French rugby union). And commercial and ticket sales won't make it up.



I am not pushing for a 3rd or 4th French team for 2015 because there is not the player base or funding to justify it in 2015. However if the Toulouse emergence in SL is a success, in particular if it starts churning out lots of good juniors, and attracting a few RU converts, then there will be a basis for a 3rd or 4th team in the not too distant future. But this will be a far cry from the 10 teams (minimum) necessary for a French professional league.




I don't understand how having a 2nd French team restricts the English player base. Currently there is not enough English talent to justify 13 English SL teams and that is one reason why the top clubs want a cutback in the number of English SL clubs -- to ensure that the existing English talent is concentrated in fewer clubs, especially in an era of repatriation of imports and migration of top English players to the NRL.