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...

I was going in Lehmann's terms of seeing how many people wander about in replica shirts etc, and virtually every single bar and hotel has Toulouse RU stuff, but I didn't see any that had Toulouse football stuff - Toulouse RU actually has 4 club shops in the city centre alone, believe it or not - a separate one each for kids, women, mens and general stuff!

sky finance SLE so if they're in SLE they should get sky money.if they can get french tv money as well that would be even better as that would allow them to invest in more youth players and teams which im sure french RL is lacking in at the moment.

Not a chance of Paris Orcas making it. TO could use the XV stadium, which is state owned (IIRC) so stadium is not a problem. I reckon they would have a better first year in SL than Catalans did and would pick up followers faster with a bigger city behind them.
Paris would be a bit like the Crusaders deal, but with no infrastructure and no players. I would love to see it, but doubt it would happen. You would need something really incredible, like SF footing a massive bill over three years to make a go of it.

how many more months before we see several SL chairmen stood on wasteland with a shovel and a hard hat saying 'we're building a new ground...honest!' ??

As things stand I think its Salford, Cas or Wakefield for the chop, to be replaced by Widnes.

if French TV are willing to fund it, i'd like to see Toulouse added as a 15th team, with the magic weekend ditched to make space.