No offence taken at all! Just your opinion and it is appreciated. Until the last two seasons I had given up all hope of seeing fev return to the top tier, but some great steps are being taken off field...in particular the new stands acquired from Scarborough fc to improve our stadium.

Our junior set up is great - I think only us and Sheffield compete with the super league teams in the academy league. Zac hardaker is proof that we can bring new stars to the game even on a championship budget.

The club is well managed and financially sound having lost something like 3 league games in 2 years so we are seeing success on the pitch without a 'sugar daddy' (love that phrase!)

Attendances are an issue but it's hard to improve this when you have been in the @rse end of rugby league for so many years. Only fax & Leigh bring anything like the number of away fans to fill our stadium (which we own)

If the door slams shut on us after all this, how do you think it will affect the sport in the championships? Fans will become even more disaffected and stay away IMO as the lack of a frankly fairytale stint in the league above a la Blackpool (in football) becomes increasingly more unlikely.

Where does the additional £10 million per year come from to fund such a structure?

The logical split would be keep SL money as is, the bigger gates will help and allow a £2m cap. Divide the 4 current SL clubs money that drop together with the £90k from the promoted Championship clubs and you have £500k, that should allow for £1m cap

Before the franchise system we had already got to the stage where automatic promotion and relegation had gone. Wakefield survived at least once because the NL1 champs either didn't want promotion or didn't meet ground criteria. What franchising does is make SL not a closed shop but does impose minimum standards on clubs. It's not perfect but its better than the alternative of P&R which just won't work any more.

As to who it has benefited well Widnes for a start. We also have clubs in new grounds such as Wire, Salford and Saints who went about getting these sorted because they had to in order to keep their places or at least not be in the at risk category.

Also if there are crap teams in SL then the ones outside of it can't be any better otherwise they would have taken the franchise off the likes of Wakefield.

I would have no issue with promotion based on minimum standards as in Football and RU. Hunslet and Dewsbury were denied promotion on minimum standards, both times saving Huddersfield.