It looks as though Toronto have run into problems as, due to the lockdown, several Australian and NZ players have over run their visas.

rlhttps://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/53414894rl

The whole thing is becoming a farce and quite frankly embarrassing.

The amount of Bad press around them is unreal. From the year before when they entered super league, with not paying TV money and owing companys hundreds of thousands. To begging for dispensation saying they have no money then Signing Tony Gigot and now Kallum Watkins, and now this.
I was really excited to have Toronto in super league for expansion and a brand new team. But they seem an utter Shambles of a club and bring nothing but bad press to the game.
How does a proffessional club F this up so much, i was excited but now i'd be happy to see the back of them to be honest, which isn't a nice thing to say.

From what I understand the Toronto players have been registered on 'competition visas' as they were expected to spend a fair amount of time in Canada. Unfortunately they got caught in the UK lockdown due to the pandemic and now have insufficient time left on their visas to complete an extended season. If correct, that seems to be a case of bad luck rather than incompetence.

Somebody in the RFL needs to pull a few strings with a sympathetic MP and get it sorted with the Home Office.

Why would they pay TV money or do you mean that they don't receive any TV money? If they don't receive any then presumably the other teams benefit same TV pie with less but bigger portions?

I'm not fully clued up with the facts on this or levels of debtors but as WO has stated the visa and COVID thing is bad luck and the problem should be engineered out by agreement rather than seen as an embarrassment

Whether I agree with them being in the Comp is another discussion but at least they've gained promotions to get there

It would seem at first glance to be an easy solution, and there is a RL Group in Parliment, but I suspect that it sets a president so it may need to be a visa extension for all overseas workers or nothing. I don't know, just thinking outloud.

Parliament is restricted to a handful of people and those debates are of importance. The perils of a Canadian RL team, would rank some way down Westminster’s pecking order at this time, I would guess.
They’re on there own, them and the incompetent RFL.

This was before super league matey, they sorted their own TV deal with a canadian company to show their games etc. They then reportedly owed around 300k to them and other business's, not too sure what the other companys were, and the reason they gave was oh we forgot to pay them.
And the players were complaining aswell about not getting paid and being paid weeks late etc, just really poor from them
I love the idea of Toronto and one of the people defending them but they're just letting the players down from my point of view. The players are doing what they can on the field, regardless of losing, but the club that is their structures just seems to constantly F things up.
And with the Visa situation they clearly had an idea they were going to be stuck here for a long time so should have done something earlier, unless they forgot again.
To be fair they may have done something about this months ago and the visa system, as we know isn't fast most of the time, could be the ones to blame. But all we see from an outside perspective is the club messed up yet again, it just looks really poor.

The debate would go something like this:

"Will the Prime Minister commit to the government looking in to the visa problems that have put Toronto's season in jeopardy, through no fault of the players themselves?"

"My honourable friend is quite wrong, there are many overseas players at clubs throughout Super League who have visas that are valid through to the end of the season, it's about time that he starts to get behind the concept of the Toronto Wolfpack and believe in the great future of rugby league in Canada"

As I said matey I'm not clued up on their debtors and wasn't responding directly on that point and I'm sorry but didn't get the TV deal reference in your post pre SL or not, but are you suggesting they paid a TV company for coverage of their games rather than vice versa?

My main point was that criticism on the Visa might be misplaced, we don't know the facts and according to an article in the Mirror TWP seem to have been told that the Home Office can't or wont deal with them directly and have asked the RFL to step in. Either way it shouldn't be that difficult to resolve IF we as a sport want them in our competition.

Just shows what a stupid idea it is to have non British teams in super league.

That’s your opinion. I disagree.

Its an interesting debate.

Not sure having 2 leagues (An Australian one & a rest of the world one) is the way to go, unless players from the countries where clubs are based are coming through in great numbers, unlike now, where the Toronto side is basically a British/Aussie franchise based in a random global city.

I'll be more enthused about these newcomers when they start producing their own local players and aren't just stealing franchises that could be taken by local towns and cities within the UK.

I'm not being funny mate i'm just explaining what i have read and heard

I suspect most people would struggle to pick out the the advantages of allowing a Canadian club into SL. They don't get a slice of the Sky money (tick), but they don't bring any away supporters to games (cross). So it's really something about spreading RL to another continent and developing a new customer/ viewing base. If that can be achieved, and Canadians do seem to enjoy a range of different sports, then the local TV rights can be sold and advertising revenue will follow the crowds whether its on the TV or at a ground. That would be enough for Toronto to be self sufficient and build a club eg bringing through their own players via an academy, widening the fan base etc. At that point you could see a real benefit for SL because there would be a growing market for access to SL on the telly. And more viewers equals more money for the TV rights, particularly from international companies who can access North American and British consumers at the same time.

Nobody knows whether the Toronto experiment will work, certainly footy seems to have taken an age to get going in the US so Toronto may have to be patient and build gradually over several years to even have a chance of success. But for me at least, that's no excuse for not trying to expand the sport and getting it on a stable financial footing.

As far as British SL is concerned, we can only claim to have English clubs as there are none from Wales and Scotland. In fact if you wanted to be really pedantic you could probably call it the Lancashire and Yorkshire SL (is Warrington still in Cheshire, I can't remember ?) . But that only serves to underline the problem we have, and hence why at least half our clubs are on the bread line. We need some way of bringing more money and younger fans into the sport. The Toronto experiment may well fail, but surely that doesn't mean we should give up trying new ideas ?