they are ludicrous figures. i went to a presentation to the manchester business community by the RFL and it was a reasonably professional effort. however, i did not see or hear anything that made me think there were incredibly astute businessmen at the helm.

is the rfl a limited company? where did you get the figures from?

You mean the generous salary cap of 300k in the Championship and £150k in Championship 1. There are no large handouts to championship clubs unless they jump through impossibly small hoops, then it is 100k max. In the last 12 months or so Doncaster, Gateshead and Keighley have all gone into Administration, Whitehaven are also struggling badly along with Blackpool so I think that partly answers your question. The like of Arthur Thomas (Leigh), Steve O'Connor (Widnes) and Des Johnston at Barrow have kept their respective clubs going along with the backers of one or two other clubs.

I think that some fans of SL clubs don't realise how much the funding of RL has changed since SKY came along as well as not even knowing that the championship actually exists. To summarise SL clubs are guaranteed a minimum of around 900k per year + costs of trips to France, and Championship clubs around 30k. Champ TV games..the HOME team gets £4000 which has to be spent on ticketing initiatives (ie free tickets). This £4000 is from the Co-Op sponsorship and NOT from SKY. SL clubs can cope with the loss of a few hundred fans when games are moved, Championship clubs cannot cope in the same way when the big game of the weekend is moved to a Thursday. For example, the Halifax v Widnes game has been moved to a Thursday. I reckon many Widnes fans who would have travelled on the Sunday will not travel on a Thursday evening, thus depriving Fax of vital income. Yes they get £4000 from the Co-Op, yes that be used to offer free tickets, but many of those would be taken by fax people who would normally pay anyway.

so good business acumen subsidising bad businesses???? recipe for disaster!

for what its worth as a secretary of an amatuer club i think the RFL have massively improved over recent years and you can genuinely see the good management cascading through the organisation. I have issues with them still, but the organisation has improved hugely...

fair enough but whats korfball?

formwe colleagues in cambridge played korfball...i presumed it a bit soft

That cycle of funding didnt start until october 09, this is before that record sport england funding started.