This is one of the irony's of the new thing.
The players will still come from the heartlands and down under.

The money spent on the academy per year can fund a broadie croft and tim lafai, of course salford leigh york etc are laughing but rugby league wont be laughing in 10 to 15 years time when there wont be enough good players around cos clubs wont keep doing it,if they do they wont pay the lads(somthing that goes on now at some clubs)so lads has they are will walk away from the game

JM explained that at present, the IMG criteria works on your immediate area. So Wakefield get the Wakefield area, Cas get the area to the Cas boundary and Fev get theirs.
Whether it stays like that remains to be seen, but we are in the best group of the 3. Other criteria obviously goes for and against.

In terms of players....that is why expansionist want a club outside the area, so the young players come from, say, Leicester or Newcastle.

It all seems so OTT to me, what in all this criteria is actually about reimagining the game. With a few exceptions there is nothing really new or inspirational to move the game itself forward.

It's just a mechanism for who can come to the party.

Right load of Bo-----ks.

Exactly my point, it's so short sighted.
Have IMG actually looked at this side of the game, to me its essential and not debatable.

Not sure but i guess there more intrested in how many tweets get put out

Yep and IMG's deal will be expired by then, so why would they care. They'll have had their cash and disappeared into the sunset, which lets be honest, is what they are in it for. After that it ain't their problem anymore.

Just a little side issue.

Last night on coronation street I noticed they were pushing, (can not remember if it was baseball or basketball).

Said to wife, a northern sitcom pushing an American excuse for a sport, that should be Rugby League.

That article states that Cas will vote against it too

Didn't Rita once have a boyfriend who played for Featherstone Rovers?

Think it was because one of the characters (Miley) was brought up in the USA.

Don’t think even IMG have yet expanded RL into the US.

Dougie Ferguson was an ex Trinity player but I don't they ever mentioned the Wakefield part.

What the game needs is not criteria it's characters. Players you want to go and watch. We need a British David Fifita or a New Martin Offia or Bill Ashurst. These are only going to come from getting more youngsters to play the game and letting then express themselves in academies. But these criteria put more emphasis on electronic advertising signs round the ground than academies.

Usually have the headphones on when it's on so don't know the story line, just seemed a bit strange to me.

Or, we already have them and no one knows because we don't get them in front of the camera......which is what IMG are all about.