Licensing & SL Structure

Quote: Armavinit "Despite your moniker, you’re always upbeat. '"

I try to see the positives I suppose. Maybe it's time for an avatar change?

Quote: Armavinit "At Wembley 1985, I sat next to an American, who was floored by the game, watching 2 halves of non stop collision, as opposed to 1 hour stop/start in 4 hours, NRL. He said “if I could import this to the US, it would go like wildfire”, he was also amazed that I was in tears after another defeat!!!'"

Of course as a lifelong RL fan I'm biased, but despite the frustrations we have with the sport, we do have an excellent "product". I don't think there's a more entertaining team sport on the planet. World class athletes, big collisions, skill, high tempo, plenty of tries, and simple enough to understand fairly quickly. It's a true family sport too. It should be exactly what North America has been missing, we've just got to open their eyes to it. It's rare that I'll watch a game with a non-RL fan and they won't enjoy it.

Quote: Armavinit "If franchises were awarded to North Amerca and Canada, I’m pretty sure they’d be allowed to sign as many Aussies as necessary, a la Catalan, so can’t see it impacting the UK player pool? I think it would impact NFL more. As you say, Toronto have worked wonders in 12 months, so business acumen won’t be a problem. Don’t think you can use Football as a model for growth because it was foisted on the US by FIFA as part of the World Cup deal.'"

Toronto have to abide by the same "Non-Fed" rules as the other UK clubs (same as Catalan currently). Canada falls under the same Federation as the UK & France (the RLEF) so will in theory be able to sign as many British players as they want (Salary Cap permitting). Similarly, we could go out & sign 10 French players, or 10 Canadians in 20 years time, and it'll have no effect on the Non-Fed limit.

Short-term it will impact the UK (& potentially French) player pool, in that the current talent will be shared between more clubs, but the flip side of that means there's another pathway open to UK talent to play at a high, professional level. For instance, Westerman leaving Warrington may mean that a door is opened for a young UK back rower to stake a claim for a shirt.

Long-term, Perez has said he'd like to have a TWP academy up & running within 3 years time. This is very ambitious, as there's very little junior RL being played in Canada currently, but one things for sure - Perez meets his ambition with actions. They also had I believe, 6 North Americans in their squad this year, with their first genuine Canadian youngster, Quinn Ngawati, getting game time. We also have to think of Melbourne, who in their 20(?) years have been very successful, but have only brought through a handful of genuine Victorian youngsters in that time. It takes time to set up the grassroots infrastructure & get it to a good enough standard. We're extremely lucky to have a number of excellent amateur clubs on our doorstep.