Unless that group of fans contained a lawyer and/or a barrister who would work for free, I'd say the cost would be enough to stop them.

For context - I used a barrister recently to assess the Terms of Business a client was aksing me to sign up to; she emailed me back 15 minutes later with an answer and a bill for £200.

rapid [iSOLICITORS [/istadium????

They're ambulance chasers - a different breed altogether.

I agree but this gives them the chance to actually do something useful for society!

You're doing a bit of straw-clutching tonight!

Surely no win no fee then

I have to ask you all where you were with your outrage the last time because the last license process was much the same with a few teams dishing out packs of lies regarding finances and stadiums and they were still put in ahead of Widnes, who had a prior administration held against us. Sound familiar?

We've heard all this legal action guff before, the best thing your club can do is act professionally within the rules and try to secure a license for 2015 otherwise they'll find themselves out in the cold for a lot longer.

You will find many on here that are completely opposed to the franchise system, both now and then.
Our previous owner fed the RFL a diet of bull doo doo at the time, and if we are to suffer for it, i cannot argue with that.
But the Franchise system is multi faceted, and in all those facets, we are significantly better than at least one club, the only point we do not secure is the geographical one, which is clearly there to add weight to quins and crusaders bids.
A point of order on the administration bit, that was removed by the RFL when crusaders hit the buffers, as they would clearly have had to remove them, so it cannot be now used against us or used to compare this franchise bid with the previous one.

Most of know that Chris and at the time had every sympathy for Widnes.
As you say we will just have to go down and hopefully sort ourselves out for 2015.

You weren't vocal enough I can tell you now. People tend to support systems they benefit from and your fans were very much in favour of the system which protected you for three years.



The system was multi faceted back then too, it didn't stop the RFL from simply picking and choosing their teams from a shopping list and leaving us out based on an administration caused entirely by a crooked previous owner. It's not something which can be used to throw you out, but it will be used against you, I guarantee that. The RFL will protect their interests, you might not like it, and you wont be the only ones, but you aren't the only ones to lose out to it and you should accept that this is the way things are ran and you are simply not making the RFLs decision difficult enough. You're still in the stadium you said you'd be out of, your team is woeful, you've been through administration and your crowds are not concrete.

You think Salford are worse off, and in many ways, they're a shambles. Crowds are terrible especially for a north western team, their team has been rubbish. But they're about to finish building the stadium which could make them prosper, and so their potential has not been realised yet. If they manage to increase their crowds on the back of this like Wire did then they could be much bigger and playing in the BBCs new back yard. There are a lot of ifs in there and it could still go to the wall completely but until that's been established they will be in.

Crusaders and Quins are being protected and they have been for years, my club knows that more than anyone. We could have saved our skins by relegating quins way back but our then Chairman Tony Chambers abstained from voting the year we went down. Crusaders were no where near ready for SL when they were brought up but funnily enough we had nothing but pontificating from super league fans and people telling us we were merely bitter and to accept the decision. We were telling people about their inflated crowds, their artificial squad, their owner, how they simply were nothing more than guesswork from several over optimistic people but of course everyone knew better, until they had two spots of admin and had to move hundreds of miles away from their original site.

Well, now its your turn. Or Cas' turn. Or both. It's not necessarily fair but it's the way things are. There will be no legal action, and you will not be some championship behemoth too big for the place, you will simply slot in next to fax and feath and learn that you and everyone else is no better than them and there really is no reason to justify keeping you in SL indefinitely at their expense. Such is life, you'll learn the lessons the hard way. I don't like it either so keep your chins up and work the best you can within the system like Steve O Connor did. It's the only way.

We shall see, you are almost certainly going to be proved right, its good to see that the RFL have learnt from their previous mistake in removing the wrong team from SL then, by doing the same thing again!!!!!
Whatever happens, we will still have our cub to follow.
Best of look for next year, i hope your bitterness disapates.

I'm sorry to say i'm in the minority as i believe the franchise system is far superior to P & R. I've seen it work in several countries, the only downfall here is the application of franchising by the RFL.

Regarding the Franchise process last time, i think you'll find that the majority of Wakefield fans weren't happy with Widnes' exclusion especially with Crusaders admittance. At that time i remember most saying, that Crusaders simply weren't ready, which proved to be correct.

Unfortunately, for us if we are demoted, it'll force the club to evaluate their spending. Top class aspects within the club such as player development/academy, community work and our spending on marketing (TV & Radio adverts etc), will probably be destroyed and take an awful long time to rectify for 2015 and our NM move.

You are correct, franchising can clearly work as a business model, but not the one being peddled by the RFL which is flawed beyond belief.

Chris, whilst I appreciate your take on the situation, as someone who has recently tasted both S.L & Championship forays, the similarities between Wakefield & Widnes are very few.

Wakefield don’t have the pleasure of playing in a quality stadium, courtesy of their Council, nor a rich benefactor, who had intimated that if Widnes failed to get a licence for 2012, he would have to review his position.

If the RFL are true to their word, and a team from the Championship is allowed entry into S.L in 2015, this would give Wakefield two years to meet the on-field criteria (Northern Rail / G.F) also to have a new ground ready for February 2015.

My biggest gripe in all this is, unlike Widnes, Salford, Castleford & Crusaders the Wakefield club has never finished in a relegation place, supporters of other sports find it baffling.

The only similarity with Widnes IMO is we were both dumped out of the top flight, after the RFL changed the goalposts mid-season.