I mentioned this before the license decision. The RFL should withhold £300K from the SL hand out to each SL club and give that to the Championship clubs to develop the club. That means the existing SL clubs would receive £900K which is still a decent amount. This leaves the SL clubs having to find approx. £700K to spend up to the full cap. This will be a struggle for the smaller clubs such as Trinity, but shouldn’t be an issue to the likes of Wigan, Leeds and the clubs with wealthy benefactors. A strong second tier is vital to the continued growth of RL as much as expansion.

I agree totally at present it's too great a drop.

I might add,

If Wakefield Trinity hadn't been denied Super League money in their first two seasons then Ted Richardson wouldn't have been forced to use his own money, raised against the Sainsburys deal.

The same £1M Sainsburys deal which ten years later went sour thus forcing Ted into an IVA and removing any room for movement In our business plan.

The same inflexibility which then forced the club into a series of bad financial decisions which were exposed by HMRCs decision to pull our tax repayment plan.

The rest is history.

Being a Bradford fan i enjoy going to Wakey, not as much as i enjoy going to Halifax but still enjoy it lol

Personally i think regardless of their withdrawl Crusaders should have gone followed closely by Harlequins who should then of been replaced by Halifax,

Quins have done nothing for the sport since the start of superleague really, and there attendances are one of the poorest if not the worst,

Although people are arguing that wakey should of gone down, the only reason being the administration other than that there is plenty of clubs that have done bugger all in recent years to warrant super league status, Bradford being one of them - it only their super league history that has possibly kept us a license !!

I would suggest he is actually reinforcing the fact he is a tit to be honest

Build on what??? we ticked the boxes we needed to tick to be in your league, there is nothing else to work on.

dont be silly.

And that is where you are fighting the wrong fight. It is illogical that a side with a stronger application should be relegated in favour of a weaker one. That would make the system a joke. Kear made the same point earlier in the season, that they have said that the 14 best applications win but then promised a berth for a championship club, which had no logic to it, because they had no idea if it was one of the best 14 applications.

If, however, you are saying that franchising is skewed in favour of the super league clubs, and that the franchising system is divisive and dysfunctional, to quote someone else, you'll get no argument from me. It has held us back massively in the last eighteen months, because no one would sign for us. JD made the point on Radio Leeds towards the end of last season.

I think this post pretty much puts the argument put forward by Steel and the odd miffed 'Fax fan to bed

I suspect that the Halifax Chairman, unlike anyone on here, knows exactly what boxes his club ticked, hence the sense of outrage.

Of course, the RFL could have called a press conference today, and nipped any aggrieved feelings in the bud by explaining their decision, and allowing publication of all Clubs applications.

Did I miss it?