It was quoted from quite heavily in The Times today.

Well it's slightly off topic but.

As a one off payment it seems ridiculously low but it must have been known in advance and accepted, are there any positive financial spin offs and is it in the bigger picture the only "reward."

I suppose the income generated from the play offs such as from game attendances could be classed as reward.

The world club challenge could attract sponsership and home attendance income allthough it seems that Wigan would love to go and play in the Aussies back yard so there must be a good reason.

The point about the grand final though is on topic in the sense it was something to play for unlike many of the games now taking place.

That was under the old p&r.

That is precisley why they gap needs closing so the drop to give it a name isn't as fearfull or catastrophic, the old p&r was a recipe for sending clubs bust.

Many would spend beyond their means to avoid the drop but in spite of this would still go down, the others who did avoid relegation still had a bigger deficit than they could cope with, those chasing promotion did the same.

The point that game made was whenever there is something to play for people will come and watch whereas many are not doing so now because the game means nothing.

The new proposals were partly intended to make the drop or the rise more achieveable and sustainable.

The bottom line is none of this has anything to do with some current SL clubs taking the action they did on Monday.

Super League is to go to 12 clubs and the money that would have been given to the 2 clubs that won't be there they want all of it for themselves and that's it.

At a fans forum 3/4 years ago Lenagan stated that because of the way the cash is divided up that the Challenge Cup was the more financially rewarding competition.

Personally I think the 2 x 12 and 3 x 8 system is ridiculous and will make the game a laughing stock.

SL should be 12 or 14 teams with a a view to expanding to 16 at a future date, raising the potential income stream from matchday revenues. Can't say I'm fussed whether it's P & R or licensing. If we do go for licensing though we have to do it properly.

The main funding however has to come from TV rights and sponsorship. Sky have got RL on the cheap. Barwick (who after all is the expert on these things) needs to negotiate a far better TV deal with Sky (or others) for Super League and raise funding for the Championship clubs by negotiating a separate deal for them, either with Sky or another TV company. Barwick should point out that they need to pay the players a wage that will stop them going down the NRL or RU route or the quality of the product will fall and so will Sky's viewing figures.

Finally we need someone with a bit of commercial accumen (rather than the current buch of muppets) employed by the RFL to start attracting some decent sponsorship, preferably from Blue Chip companies.

Oh, and get rid of Wood as well. He's bloody useless!

Part quote.

"I presume they would change the rules and bring back the far more sensible U21 competition and allow the odd over age player in. Which they should be doing regardless of any of this anyway!'"

I think you will find that it was the lower sl clubs who have little or no academy of their own that voted to get rid of the U21's

IL voted to abolish the U21s along with Leeds. It's a decision he regrets now though.

ill shut up now

"

It was some SL clubs that voted to abolish the under 21's in the first place, why, to save money and resulted in many players being cast adrift.'"

Even if there was that doesn't address the issue of clubs in the same competition working to vastly different budgets.

This isn't the Cup where on a good day with a lot of luck a Championship side paying its players out of a £300K salary cap manages to put one over on one of the lesser SL teams in a one off game. For them to progress they would have to beat sides with full time players consistently. This isn't going to happen.

And as to that sliding scale idea for SL2 this is completely nuts. How on earth does that work? One season you are on £650K and the season after your share is reduced to £400K because you finished a couple of places lower in the competition? You won't know what your income is from one season to the next.

Probably for the best