Franchising was supposed to help clubs financially and to bring more young players through. It's done well on the bringing youth players through, however not so financially.

It probably would have worked if The RFL had some balls and threw clubs who went into administration out. If relegation was in place now Koucash would just pay for some journeyman and not bring the best of his youth set up through.

As I was typing the bit above I have BBC breakfast on and the reporter said it MAY bring back relegation . I thought it was already confirmed is this not the case.

No idea im sure it was part of the RFL's plans though or maybe it was just hearsay, having 2 strong leages??

Eitherway the state of the game over here is ridiculous, if you compare the wages the lads are getting for putting their boddies through hell week in week out and what soccer players get paidjust proves on a business level the RFL have no idea whatsoever! The premier league get billions in sponsorship deals and rfl get to RENT 7 stobart wagons with pictures on, absolutely crazy piece of business. Id let koucash run the rfl at least he has more business knowledge

Also makes sure you are always at home in the playoffs if you finish top. It was ridiculous a few years back when we finished top and Leeds finished 4th and we had to go to Headingley. I'm convinced in the Noble years we'd have got to a GF with this top 8 playoff format farce.

If and its a big if they had the money to have two string leagues I'd actually go for the one that ends up three lots of 8 at some point. BUT the trouble is I don't think the RFL have a clue as to where the extra money that is required is going to come from.



I completely agree and have been saying pretty much the same thing for years. You can't expect the players to behave like professional sportsmen with it as their only job and career and yet be paid semi-pro wages.

The average wage for RL Championship player e.g at Leigh is £12K as their salary cap is a mere £300K a season (based on a squad of 25). How can you have players earning that competing with the Sam T's and Charnley's of this world who are paid to train full time and have all the benefits of top class conditioners etc?

Don't get me wrong I still think SL players are under paid as well. There will be players getting regular games in our first team who earn far less than many very average non-premierhip soccer players. The current issue though is how do an extra 10 teams suddenly find around an extra £1.5M and even if they did where are they going to spend it? There aren't enough good players to go around as it is.



Well we aren't going to get more money into the game offering free sponsorship compared to the likes the RFU and NRL who instead negotiate top dollar TV deals that is for sure.

You never know maybe the RFL are going to pull a rabbit out of the hat and will announce a massive cash injection from Sky to fund the two leagues of 12. I am not holding my breath though and instead just think Nigel Woods is fiddling with league structures while RL burns.

My real concern is they will dilute the money across 24 teams and actually lower the salary cap. Clubs like Wigan, Wire and Leeds would then have to offload players for the benefit of ex-championship sides and it would make their investment in these players seem pointless.

This is why, IMO, two leagues of 10 was the best option. That why we would only have to fund 20 clubs. We fund 14 as it is so we would only have to fund another 6 clubs. With Fev, Leigh, Fax and Sheffield already got good business models that already takes us to 18 teams. We would only need to find 2 more then. 10 in SL1 operating at one salary cap limit and SL2 operating at a lower cap limit but high enough to be full time. Than the transition between SL1 and SL2 wouldn't be so great. Promotion to SL2 is then decided by licensing.

My view is you can't really have any large difference in salary cap between SL1 and SL2. While it may be true a relegated club may lose it's best couple of players because that's just the way it goes I don't think any large disparity between the wages offered between SL1 and SL2 is workable.

In order to offer as stable a career as is possible we can't have the situation where players contracts get ripped up on relegation and you can't have teams dismantled because they are relegated either. Who like Koukash would take over the likes of Salford if after having bought Morely etc had to release them six months later? Why would Morely etc agree to take a risk on losing their jobs and join a side like Salford who may be relegated rather than stay where they are on maybe a lower but more guaranteed wage?

So even two teams of 10 does IMO require at least another £9m to be found to fund these clubs and that is before we consider the fact some clubs in SL aren't fully funded anyway.

It's better than going too 24 in that sense I'd agree but I will be pleasantly surprised if there is [iany[/i extra money behind any of this.