To be fair, the trip to Catalans is a once in a season trip for UK clubs. We can't expect the Catalans fans to travel to the UK every other week!

Again the only genuine franchising system would need completely new clubs without any historical associations , otherwise it will not work

Agreed, but they could still take more than 10 fans, when they play the likes of Leeds, Wigan, Saints, Warrington etc..

Firstly, you're daft if you don't realise that the current "promotion and relegation" system makes it much harder - nay impossible - for a championship side to enter SL than it was under franchising. Under franchising it was hard work, but possible. Under this system, we will never see a championship club promoted. It effectively makes the current 12 clubs a closed shop until such time as one of them either goes bankrupt (not impossible), or the league decides to expand to a larger number.

Secondly, Koukash is a plonker. This is a man who runs a club based solidly in the so-called RL "heartlands", which has been in existence for 140 years, hasn't been competitive in the top division for 40 years, and averages less than 4,500 crowds. And he's criticising a club which averages crowds more than twice the size of Salford, is highly competitive in both CC and SL, despite - apparently - not being in the so-called essential "heartlands" and yet has only been in existence for ten years. He's a corner shop accusing a supermarket of being unsuccessful. If Catalans left the competition, it would be much the poorer in many ways. If Salford left the competition, it'd make no difference at all in terms of support, sponsorship, media exposure or strengthening the international game.

Before he goes around criticising clubs which have actually made a remarkable success of the most difficult competitive position in the competition, he might first glance at all the advantages of the so-called heartlands which he is so keen to retreat to, which his own club allegedly benefits from, and wonder why, if it's so much better in Salford than Perpignan, he can't manage to persuade even 5,000 people to regularly attend his matches, or put together a squad which will ever challenge the rest of the competition without cheating the cap.

Idiot.

Sorry, but you're totally wrong on your first point. Under the current system, at worst a Championship club has a one-off game against a SL club (the million pound game) to gain promotion. Bradford had a great chance against Wakefield last season, and someone will have a similar opportunity at the end of this season. Tough, yes, but impossible, far from it.

Tough , difficult , unlikely even , but not soul destroying as ' licencing ' is

This

Well said Starbug/Gubrats !

Btw, stand up the fan of a current SL team that would staunchly continue to support franchising if their team wasn't included in the franchise?

Think about it before you answer.......

Stopped reading after Canadian players should play for the Canadian teams. Isn't that what Catalans were supposed to be doing? I'm all for expansion, but in the right way.

Why? They don't in other major sports.

Don't what? Expand? Or my point about Catalans?

How do you think football became the global phenomenon that it is if someone somrwhere didn't take the game elsewhere? Football is expanding, just in a slightly different way, trying to promote womens football across the country. There's talk today of a shake up in the men's game here as well, introducing a new league.

There has been a professional rugby union league kicking off last month in the USA. If that takes off, it will increase the global interest of rugby union even further ahead of league.

Tennis and Formula 1 take their products around the world, adding new destinations each year. Cricket are promoting the T20 leagues and cups more than ever before.

That's just a few off the top of my head...

You misunderstand. My point was that it is not always necessary to have a team full of home-grown (locally or nationally) players to be successful. Man City, for instance, regularly only have one British player in their team. When they played Real Madrid recently Madrid had as many British players in their starting 11. Expanding sport nowadays is all about hype. Kids want to be associated with famous global brands, often irrespective of the quality of the offering or an understanding of the sport. See F1, union or T20 cricket. RL is the greatest sport on the planet but I can never see a time when it has the money behind it or access to the media to realise that potential. Also the Emperor's New Clothes approach just isn't our style (thankfully). Richard Lewis is an excellent leader - he was chair of the RFL & Sport England but it could be argued made less progress than the current bunch.

Are you for real ?

If the game expands further away from the heartlands, in France, Canada, London, Wales, of course fewer away fans will travel from these places to Yorkshire and Lancashire to watch their team play, it's just not possible.
It's not too bad making a once a season trip to France or "a big day out" in London once a year but, nobody can expect Catalan fans to travel to each and every game in England, it isn't going to happen and it's utterly wrong to deride their fans for not travelling.
The question is whether the game should include these clubs, primarily to try and help grow the game on the bigger stage.

There are 2 simple choices.

Keep the game in the North of England and constantly complain that we cant secure sponsorship and advertising etc or, try and raise the profile of the game and increase interest outside of the "heartlands".

Or

Expand into new areas and help grow the game globally

This will mean sacrificing something in terms of the domestic game, at least in the short term but, to move the game forward, surely it's worth it ?

Ah I see what you mean now, apologies. My point with regards to Catalans was aimed at Jeans audacity to make a statement that a Canadian club in 10 years time would be made up of Canadian players, just like Catalans were allegedly going to be.

Don't think it's wrong at all that we have overseas players, just needs to be regulated to encourage local participation and given young kids a dream of playing for their home club IMO. The quota is a good rule in my opinion and stops teams buying a load of Aussies.

Didn't the FA bring in some regs with regards to homegrown players recently?