Quote: salford sport "This is the problem with RL. It's not about making the game more attractive to future investors or sponsors! No it's how are the clubs with no money going to get on! I'll tell you! Exactly the same as they are now. Don't kid yourself that Superleague is even an competitive because it isn't. Only 4 clubs can win the GF anyway so nothing will change, it will just give the league a higher profile! And maybe make another club able to challenge.'"
a) there are 6 teams at the moment (one of which definitely wouldn't want the introduction of marquee players) all within a hairs breath at the top of the league - 6 teams all have a chance of GF appearances, atm theres no clear standout - that's more than we've ever had at this stage in memory
b) encouraging sustainable growth can only be a good thing - marquee signings will only lead to more boom or bust cycles which drags the name of the sport through mud because for every great player signed using this rule, a club with over reach and lead to 1000 fun story headlines about yet another club in rl going bust. For further details, see Bradford bulls circa 2005.
c) Saying the bottom clubs are going no where is a fallacy. (Dangerous example on the Warrington board) look at the slow but steady progress widnes are making, only signing 1 top quality player a year, bringing kids through, and moving up the table as a result. Clubs can still bust themselves with only the cap, adding in exemptions will only make that worse.
d) Salford fans were saying that super league won't be competitive this year because with all their high profile signings they'll run away with it - surely that in itself shows a competitive league. Whilst were not bottom one year top the next like the NRL is, we were slowly getting that way thanks to licensing, unfortunately, that's all been thrown out and were gonna be starting again...
E) we should focus on keeping the best stars we currently have, before trying to take stars from the nrl
Edit: btw, I'm not necessarily against a marquee exemption (though I'd like the rfl to have some ruling on who counts as a marquee) but it annoys me when people use the argument "look at my wonderful idea p, anyone who disagrees is backwards and holding the sport back and blah blah blah" (which is something koukash does a lot btw) - there are 2 reasoned sides to every argument