?

Why?

There's a world of difference between the two - just because they are in the same country doesn't mean they have to be treated the same. Each one should be judged on its merits.

Stade Francais have gone from being a club watched by a couple of hundred expat southerners, in a city with little rugby interest, to being the worlds richest rugby club. They should be the poster boy for expansion teams. They have extremely wealthy owners, some very high profile fans (Jacques Chirac for example) & lots of government connections. *If* they put in a *serious* bid, the RFL would be nuts to turn them away IMO, provided they get some guarantees about the longevity of the commitment. If a London premiership football club came to the RFL and said "£5 million a year isn't very much, we want a team", the same arguments would apply.

Obviously there's potential problems with enforcing the salary cap on them and issues with them hiring away a bunch of top players from the NRL. Maybe there's a case for making them join the championship for a year first, to sort out travel and other operational things, but it seems a bit pointless/unfair to have an operation with a playing budget (for RU) which is more than 10 times the salary cap in the NRL or SL competing with say Keighley or Batley?

Toulouse is (currently) a championship sized club, with championship sized revenues and a couple of previous failed SL bids. They finished in a relegation position this year and with fewer imports next year, it's hard to see how that is going to improve in 2010. Unless they can show that there'll be millions of euros extra funding available from local government if they go up, it's hard to make an on-field or financial argument for them to be treated as a special case.

Chances are, nothing will come of it, but it would be crazy just to reject it out of hand.

how would paris go if they played in the championship this year?

the RFL are showing that they can bend the rules when they see fit

Not very well , considering they dont have a team

Let me give you a "french" point of view.

First, Paris isn't and wasn't a rugby desert. In the 80's, the racing club de France has been RU french champion. This team was known as the "show biz" team beacause many players worked in bars and discos. They played with bow ties, drank champagne on the field at half-time,...it was Paris and it was already different. In the 1950's the Celtic de Paris was a famous Rugby League team. Nowadays, the RU comité de Paris is the largest comité in France!

Second, Paris is Paris! In France, you have Paris and all the rest, called La Province. Paris is the for ideas, TV, money. If you want to exist, you have to be in Paris. So, a Paris SL team would be a great thing for the game in France and in Europe. The transaction is far from Stade Français money limits. A rasonable SL budget would be around 6 to 8 M€ while RU is aroud 18M€.

Third, this project is not only a league project but a part of a Stade Français global project. The club has been struggleing for few years for the renovation of his stadium. Two teams is always better that one to amortize

Four, project's leader is Bernard Laporte, former France RU manager and former secretary of sports. Laporte is a person open on the future. He has always been interested on Rugby League, most of all on NRL, because he understood the inovation process made in the game. He never took part of the french RU inteligentia, the Barbarians, and today he has no real place in the RU family. However, Laporte Family is still Rugby Union!

Five, a guy in Toulouse has been struggleing for years for increase quality of the game. He hasn't been all the time really helped. But today, he has a solid project in the pipe, more than 200 private partnairs, the public instittutions, a new stadium in view...Toulouse is the 4th french city and the rugbys capital. This guy don't receive all the support he would have.

So, as the fans say: "Paris is magic" but for the moment, Paris is "Show biz" and Toulouse exists...

that argument wasnt in favour of top down exapansion ( though i have no issue with it) but simply against sticking rigidly to bottom up growth, because bottom up growth simply doesnt happen

again thats not actually quite what was said, which was championship clubs need to get to a GF or win the NRC,

clubs who dont compete in these competitions obviously cant win them or even get to a GF

as for the Sky thing, Sky pretty much admitted they were making it up as they went along

and for good reason there will be parts of the franchise process the RFL need to keep quiet if they are to be able to judge the clubs properly

They've also consistently said from first floating the licence system in 2005 that the 'top down' method of simply creating an SL club from scratch and planting it somewhere, a la PSG or Gateshead Thunder, had failed and that the new system would mean clubs having to develop and prove their viability before applying for an SL place.

there are more ways of proving your viability than competing in the championship

if Leicester Tigers came to the RFL with a fantastic business plan for a dual code club, told them the academy they were looking to put in place and showed them the millions they would put into it if they were given a place in SL do you think the RFL would turn them away because they wouldnt fulfill some pointless pandering excercise of spending 3 years in the championship just to prove a point?

you cant compare what we have heard of the stade francais bid to either PSG or Gateshead, where the idea was right, just the execution was clearly flawed from the start

if the skill, money, and commitment for a fully pro club in Paris is there, it would be a dereliction of duty to turn that away because they dont want to spend three years waiting in a semi-pro comp in northern england

This is really a question of bullying. If a rich club came up and said, "we'll get a team going, but only for SL" then the RLF must decide to ignore the potential bonus in favour of the current product, or take a risk. If SF joined SL for three years, brought the level down and then amounted to nothing, it would be a damage to the SL.

I think the RFL will not take a top-down club in 2012 and will wait to see how the Crusaders come through it. In the future I could see them maybe taking a punt on a dual-code club, but in most cases (e.g. Leicester) they could easily ask the club to join the championship and you would be suprised if Leicester couldn't compete with good acadmy players at that level.

Have to keep an eye on the TO bid to see whether it makes sence having a French team in the Championship.

its not a question of whether Leicester could or couldnt compete at championship level, its whether they would want to

its a different situation with Toulouse, who are established and using this time to tweak their player pathways and give some youngsters better competition

Leicester/Paris or whoever arent in that position, three year spent in the championship wont really benefit them at all

I know, but they don't have SL players either, they won't grow them overnight and it's a risk to our product to allow them in and suffer their learning curve in SL. If they don't show willing to try it in the Championship what does it tell us about how much they want it?