toulose has over 1 million people, airbus is located there

they will be a far stronger club than les cats and wont harm them at all.

theres no,i think,about it mate,it was another case of SLE/RFL doing deals behind closed doors and telling no one else about it till its to late.fortunately the owner of T,O was an honest man in this instance and this information came out.
this is why the supporters of CC clubs kicked up a stink [paticularly widnes who appear to have had more to lose than others if this decision stood].oh and the L,E and its reporters wernt very happy about it either.

Technically they said they would promote a team from NL1, a compettition that no longer exists. While it causes people to doubt the word of the RFLHQ, they have/do/will change their minds to make the best decision, not stick with a promise they made to be seen as fair. If in 2011 there is no club better than the SL clubs they will not promote.

Clubs have said they would not expand beyond 14 based on the current Sky deal, if French PPV increased it's bid for a SL with TO and Perpignan involved I could see TO promoted, independently of their Bid points or other Championship clubs' licence success. This would see a 15 club SL with a bye round, in no way impossible. The amount of increased TV revenue required by a French broadcaster would be significant from a SL club POV, but negligible compared with PPV budgets and what they pay for Union/Wendyball/Handball in France.

One or two of them might want to start turning up to matches then. Football barely even gets a look in in Toulouse because of rugby union there so I'm afraid any dreams of TO XIII becoming a Super League superpower are exactly that.

You could have said the same about Perpignan and UTC three years before we made it to SL. The difference would be that there are enough French academy players who will be SL grade within the year, twice as fast as our players took to develop. That and the media attention would be massive, not as big as Paris being included, but that is as credible as Wellington Orcas joining the SL.

i know its my lack of knowledge of SLE.but what have the above teams got to do with SLE?

what's happened to the Les Cats crowds? They seem to have dropped dramatically this year.

which is the same situation in peripgnan pre LC entering SL so its a silly argument

coming last

some of the ground closed due to re-development............and coming last

shouldve gone to 16 clubs

hoefully paris and toulose come in together if they can get canal + to pay for their games so they dont get any sky money

this could be independant of the licensing process

Good shout Dally. Would be good for the game in France if Canal + got more involved.

In terms of their structures would Toulouse be ready for SL? I'm talking behind the scenes, finance, junior structure, facilities, corporate.....

From what I've witnessed, no they wouldn't be. They have only got two stands, with much of the ground just being grass banking and they only have a couple of sets of turnstiles. I did witness a junior training session when I was last there but each age group only appeared to have 6/7 players and sadly the standard was way below what you'd see from similar age groups in this country. That will hopefully improve in time but, personally, I wouldn't say they could be considered one of the top 14 clubs in Europe at the moment.

But I'm sure someone will disagree.

Average 2009/2010 Toulouse FC average crowd in Ligue 1 - 19176. Capacity of Stade Ernest Wallon, the RU ground in Toulouse, is 19000. Football has more games and a higher average crowd than rugby union.

Just because union journalists like to make out that RU is more popular than football doesn't make it true...