I heard a radio interview a few months ago with Jeremy Wray, Chairman of Swindon Town FC. He was discussing the interview with Paolo Di Canio shortly before he was appointed as team manager. Di Canio asked Wray what were the club's aspirations and Wray answered with suprising candours[/ihitter and would've walked away".

I'm still surprised by some fans and Chairmen's reluctance to accept the current situation they are in, in favour of living on past "glories", whatever they may perceive them to be.

NOt for another 4 years it wont.
You mean like the 10+ years we had of exactly the same which didnt bring huge new income streams.
No, sky pay for SL. They pay £18m for a 14 team SL. They pay the money to the RFL to distribute to SL clubs for playing in SL. If we were to cut the league by 4, Sky would expect the SC to go up. They will not accept paying money to SL for a league they don’t have the rights to and don’t want to screen.

That’s even jumping passed the question of why SL (Europe) is going to give money owed to them, to the lower leagues?


So they same as we had for the firt 10+ years of SL which proved so unsuccessful.

Where are these players of sufficient quality going to come from? especially when you are mortgaging the future on the increase in quality resulting in an increase in TV revenues in 4 years time.
Sky have dictated the numbers, they dont want a second league.

hope that helps.

If for one minute you believe this will move forward without Sky then you are deluded. If Sky feel they will benefit then it will happen, if the top 10 clubs feel they will benefit they will vote for it. SL is less than 20 years old, it will evolve just as our sport evolved in its infancy from 15 to 13 players etc irrespective how much the Luddites like yourself kick scream and throw their toys out.

I don’t believe it will move forward without Sky, that’s why I don’t believe it will move forward.

Sky don’t want to broadcast a second tier. They certainly don’t want to pay for it, and they especially don’t want to pay for it and not broadcast it.

And you aren’t proposing evolution, you are proposing going backwards at a rate of knots but pretending we aren’t by calling it by a new name.

My post was answering a question posed by tb, are you one and the same?

Assuming you agree the current reality isn't working then what would you propose for the future of our sport, indeed you may think all is wonderful and state so.

I look forward to your reply.

There is a private message function for you to use if that’s what you want to do,

I don’t assume the current system, by and large isn’t working. Of the three clubs who have gone bust, one was a risk, a risk we were all aware of but a risk all the same. Doesn’t make it wrong to try but we were all aware it could fail. The other 2, in Wakefield and Bradford, are both clubs who everyone was aware werent being run very well for a matter of years. P+R or any other system you care to think of would make no difference at all to those situations. They would in fact exacerbate them.

Completely agree. Whilst it is correct that the RFL should review P+R in light of recent events, it would be a knee jerk reaction to have a massive change (yet again).

What RL in whole needs is stability, not changing everything every few years (including the actual rules of the game).

I believe new fans are put off because we can't stick to a set of rules for longer than a few years. Make minor amendments, yes, but not wholesale changes.

as an additional point:

I am only aware of three sports that have introduced P&R between separate pro and semi pro comps: football in the mid 80s; RU and RL in the mid 90s when the introduced fully/ openly pro comps in the mid 90s.

The two that have stuck with it (though there are perennial mutterings in RU about moving to a license system) are those that introduced it when they became awash with the lind of money RL can only dream of.

Is that your answer? Is my assumption that you feel everything is fine correct or will you write down your visions and a brief support of them for us to critique.

By and large i think we are ok, there are improvements to be made but these will be minor amendments rather than a radical overhaul.

What improvements do you feel need to be made, why and what are your solutions.

I think the three year aspect should be dropped, if a club is ready, it is ready why bother waiting for an arbitrary time period.
I think the Salary Cap needs a major re-valuation, it clearly doesn’t stop clubs overspending but it does stop our clubs competing for the best players. It also stops clubs in bringing in the “big names” and the associated benefits that can bring.
I think clubs could work together a bit better, things like a centralised ticketing system, would be useful.

I think we could also market the game and individual rounds a bit better, for example, we have a Leeds/Bradford derby, a Saints/Wigan derby, a Hull derby, televised every easter, lets make that the ‘heritage round ‘get them in heritage jerseys, some of the old boys parading around the pitch, video packages on the big screens etc. focus on getting full houses for that round, sell some heritage jerseys etc. First round of the season play a game a night for the week, offer them all to sky or look to a half Magic weekend to start the season, have Leeds V Wakefield, Cas v Bradford, the Hull Derby and try and sell out St James’ Park or Elland Road, or Bramall Lane on the Saturday with something similar repeated at the other side of the pennies on the Sunday.

There are lots of little improvements we can make, but I don’t see the need for another (our 3rd or 4th in the last 20 years) major overhaul of the game.

Thank you for that, and for the clubs not in SL at present or are you saying that as soon as a club hits the 2500 gates, jnr structures and stadium it should be in?

I think when they are ready, and when the league can support them, we promote them. How we judge that is up for debate.

Id be tempted to look at something similar to the NFL where a clubs acceptance is voted for by the clubs existing in the league.

Or an ‘expansion board’ with say 3 reps of the SL clubs, 1 from a community aspect, and 2 independants who will look at when we can expand, by how many, the process for entry and who gets in.