Cut the "made up" childish rubbish it's insulting. I have answered it as above.........

If the French game produces French RL players good enough to play Professional Superleague then the English cubs can sign them. A case in point is Theo Fages he went to St Helens and became a fantastic star. Luca Albert decided to go to Les Catalans, but they didn't play him and he's not developed because of this and has dropped back to the French League.

You two could not be more wrong. The French game develops young players, and a small number are good enough for Superleague.

There is however no pathway to Superleague if they sign for Les Catalans. that is Sadlers point quality young French players can sign for SL clubs here and go through the ranks here from academy to reserves (when that re-starts) and to first team. Fages is an example.

But Les catalans cleary do not offer these opportunities do they? Gaucsh just signs the biggest stars he can and to hell with French players.......

Don't you think with the Folau money Gausch could have re-opened an academy instead?? Or are you conveniently forgetting that too?

Sorry Donny but, you choose to follow an anti expansion narrative (understatement) and display "the" Catalan starting 13.
I'm sure you know that their 2020 squad of 30 players includes 16 French born players and whilst accepting that their first choice 17 would include say 6 or 7 of those players, most other SL sides would be broadly similar.
If there is to be a 7 non fed trained player rule, would you exempt Catalan from this ?? and should all other clubs do the same ??

Think again

EVERY SL club is trying to do the best that it can on the field of play and just because Catalan are French, it's utterly ridiculous to enforce a different set of rules for them.
You love to quote your RL Press editors but, do you not think that their editorials are deliberately provocative and do you think that there could be a reason for this.

I actually agree that Catalan could and should do more to help develop their best talent but, in an open market, you couldn't guarantee that those players would want to remain at Catalan. How on earth would you impose that ruling.
Should we insist that any French born players at other clubs return and play for Catalan ?
Would it be legal - I dont think so.

Bottom line, are they breaking any rules - no

Should they do more to help develop the game in France - yes

Once again you try to win a debate by simply discrediting me

Your "opinion" isn't based on reality. You can't just accept you got this wrong. Paris was chosen as a capital city and they played London who erm are also a capitol city and Maurice Lyndsay spoke of Milan another big city and Barcelona who were a regional capital. Not my opinion at all, this is from David Lawrenson's article on Superleague from the book Seasons in the Sun. Lawrenson makes no reference to Perpignan. Toulouse pushed to replace the defunct Paris as Toulouse applied 1996 and were blocked out by Paris. The replacement was there - the fact is Superleague didn't want them. There was no desire to find a French replacement - you made that up - I looked it up.......

You also know full well Superleague clubs are required to develop juniors into pro-players and underpin a TV deal. The English clubs do this , the North American clubs can't do this and and French clubs have no desire - Catalans who follow the policy of shipping in overseas players do not, and Toulouse are set to follow that.

Not my opinion at all what I reflect is Elstone's analysis that North America bring nothing to Superleague, and nor do Catalans, or even Toulouse if they eject their French players for Aussies, kiwis and south sea islanders.

I can accept you like the romantic idea personally of a "French" SL club but it's worth recording on here that even the arch expansionist Martyn Sadler just doesn't see it anymore. Not when there's no interest in promoting French players which killed the GB.v.France games....You made up the bit in bold.

Well it's a very interesting question and you may think it a very fair answer if I say I don't know a lot about Australian Rugby league. But I would say that Melbourne Storm obviously underpin the massive NRL TV deal there is no such deal in France

I would also say that London develop few players despite a 40 year existence yet they are seen as important in terms of being in Superleague. I am not sure about this.

But if Martyn Sadler sees no point to Catalans if they refuse to develop French juniors into professionals (and can't get a France TV deal) there is a better argument for removing them from SL than these is for removing Melbourne from the NRL.It may not be a case that Melbourne develop few Victorian professionals, more that Catalans simply refuse to even try to develop any at all?

Bottom line as proposed by Martyn Sadler is Mr, Gausch can choose to ensure his money is spent on finding the best team from anywhere so his club can win things and get to finals, or he can engage in some real French development. This begs the question maybe English SL clubs should follow suit and shut their academies?

And the answer to that may come with the new 2022 deal.

Are you suggesting that SKY are concerned about how many players each club produces ?? Really ??
Sky are bothered about having something to broadcast, selling subscriptions and most importantly, selling advertising.

Do you think that they are in the least bit concerned about junior or academy development ?

To steal one of your favourite phrases, you made that up.

SL can insist that clubs produce X number of players as part of the "membership" of the league but, not Sky.

As far as "shipping in overseas players", have they (Catalan) broken any rules here ?

I think you got the first point muddled up. It's the Supereague clubs that are primarily keen clubs have a full player development system, this however involves SKY who provide money for the foundations that promote Rugby league in Superleague club areas. After that it's the clubs who agreed development then needed SL clubs to have academies, and then they started to sort out reserves as well

Before COVID It was going this wayMartyn Sadler that made a scathing criticism of the club reflecting the criticisms that English Superleague sides have of the club as well. Gausch rarely ever attends SL meetings even though SL bosses demanded he did to explain why so much money was thrown at Folau (again rather than developing French players).

To answer your question I don't think Les Catalans are breaking the rules, BUT nor do I think that if the Superleague chairmen who are generally fed up to the back teeth with them would be breaking any rules excluding them in 2022. As for SKY they don't want overseas clubs full stop, but as McManus said they will concede a couple if that means expanding the game with more players and more TV money.

Finally (and thanks for the debate) it has always been the case that the "expansion of the game" involves clubs who develop more quality players to expand the playing pool and develop more paying TV deals to pay these players . Proof positive came from Eric Perez who said he would do this with TWP. Obviously TWP did neither and were booted out. Thing is Gausch does "Neither either"

All questions, no answers.

What DO Catalans bring to the tournament? Make the case considering;

They don't produce players.
When they reached a major final, ticket sales were the worst ever.
The profile of the comp has declined since their involvement.
France RL are if anything worse, and do not bring any interest to the value of international RL.

I could go on and Donny has (at great length).

You think Catalans are good for SL. Please tell us. What are the positives?

Isn’t St Esteve, Catalans reserve team?

Only saints, Wigan and Leeds produce SL quality players. The rest shove a number 23 squad number on a random local amateur player to keep costs down.