Not according to the RFL statement:

=#0000FFToulouse do need to appear in the 2010 Co-operative Championship Grand Final to earn the right to apply for a Super League licence from the 2012 season onwards.

Simples.

There is no relegation anymore. Where have you been?

well i can only hope they change it again,

seems a fairly silly restriction

sorry demoted

Yes, after 2012. Maybe.

tb taught me

Which the RFL then allowed Toulouse to circumnavigate for 2010 as they still have all those 5 players , sneaky eh

What intrigues me about all this - is how did this "mistake" come out in the first place. Did League Express contact the RFL and ask a random question about Toulouse and their eligibility for a franchise - if so, what triggered this? Any knowledgeable RL fan would already know that the RFL had previously said Toulouse had to make the GF to be eligible. Were they tipped off?

Or was it that the RFL got in touch with League Express - if so, why, wouldn't the proper channels be a press release? Perhaps they wanted to leak the story, see what the reaction was and then issue a denial saying it was all a big mistake. The only problem was that Toulouse didn't play along with their little game.

Or am I giving the RFL too much credit - either way they are a bunch of incompetent fools.

Richard Lewis (foreground, fifth left-with woman in red)

Nigel Wood (background, dark matter behind the right hand tree)



I knew it.

Told you it was a storm in a teacup. Just because the Toulouse Chairman or whoever he is was saying this that and the other didn't make it true. I know a lot of people don't trust the RFL, but I don't think they are stupid enough to completely contradict statements that they make regarding massive issues such as SL licencing. Richard Lewis said that having Toulouse in the Championship would be beneficial to the Championship because it allowed a better comparison between Toulouse and the Championship clubs.

As I said before and Smokey has said, it make sense to allow Toulouse to apply for SL, but for any Championship clubs that don't meet the playing performance criteria, they would only only get a place after any guaranteed places have been decided.

At the end of the day, the RFL have issued threats to several SL clubs so why restrict the applications to only a small number?

100% agree with that.

I think it just demonstrate the lack of foresight of the RFL.
1) They made a short sighted decision to impose the GF condition to Toulouse to try to have everybody happy. They were possibly thinking "Well maybe Toulouse will make the GF, and anyway later on we may change the rules, people won't remember"

.
2) They must have told the Toulouse staff "don't worry" (well I would have been worried if, like them, I have had to rely on an informal word from the RFL)
3) Then after some insisting probing from LE, they admit it one year later.
4) They see the uproar and change their mind the same day!

End result? Toulouse has certainly now less than 1 chance of 10 to be allowed to apply for the SL whilst everybody admit that for the game, and RL in France expansion with Toulouse would be a great option. This GF criterion should never has been imposed on Toulouse in the first place.

See what is coming? Because the RFL wants expansion, they will look for a French team which does not need to reach the GF criterion... As it happens there is one knocking at the door with apparently some financial guarantee. Look out for Paris in 2012, they are possibly the biggest winners of this whole burlesque story.

PS: to avoid misplaced criticism, the point I am making is that the crux of the problem is in 1), the fact that a poor decision was taken in the first place with certainly the idea it could be changed later on.

The RFL making poor decisions?? Never...

Interesting conspiracy theory there



Are the RFL really that clever ?

So many lies, so many! Our organising body has no credibility left, none at all.

Oi Nige , or is Ray on this shift

Are you really that clever ?

You mean LE isn't a reputable journal and doesn't have an anti expansionist agenda?

Yeah I see what you mean, nowt on BBC, Sporting Life or any other decent media...

this has been the funniest thread on here for ages seeing the reaction from the flatcap brigade.

seriously, well done guys.

If the current French coach is to believed, Paris have already been given the nod.

Has anyone considered the possibility that the RFL don't actually want Toulouse in SL? From the start they put restrictions on the quota players they could have in the Championship and also laid down the strict playing performance criteria, which they have re-affirmed after this new "story" broke.

If the RFL wanted Toulouse in SL that badly they wouldn't have said come and join the Championship, and try to fulfil all this criteria. They could have just said you stay were you are and by 2012 we'll see you right. By inviting Toulouse into the Championship and laying down strict criteria has actually made it very hard for Toulouse to get a licence - unless more than 1 club is relegated from SL that is.

Nice that you can show such empathy towards your 'fellow' fans with such sweeping generalisations.....

So it's because we have so many 'moaning fans' that the sport is way behind RU in the UK?? I hope you've made Dicky Lewis aware of this revelation so that the RFL can set about putting it right. Though I suppose you have the answers already.

RL struggles because the game cant accept needed change, many clubs refuse to upgrade and fans are so selfish and close minded

Given Mike Rylance's work involvement and work on behalf of French RL for the past decades, there was definitely not any "agenda" behind the report.

I think FrogRL's summary of the situation is absolutely correct.

why is it whenever fans of championship clubs raise their voices about something which directly affects them, you get the usual suspects trying to condescend and indeed condemn them? for once we are all united in our condemnation of the rfl and it's underhanded tactics, whether we are fax, barrow, widnes, leigh or cougars fans we are singing from the same hymn sheet. then we get some non-descript antipodeans telling us to shut up and stop moaning, the usual s calling us flat cappers, what we are a fans of the greatest game and in our eyes the greatest clubs and we will defend them as fervently as we an in the face of any adversity!

rugby league is not just about the 14 super league clubs, it does exist outside of the tiny mind sets of some posters on this forum.

Like the changes made when Celtic were admitted into SL? That barely lasted a year. And of course fans are selfish -they're fans you daft prick. You generally find that those fans advocating expansion AT ANY COST are fans of unaffected clubs and those up in arms at the very suggestion are NIMBY's because it directly affects their club - probably to the detriment. That's what fans do numbnuts. You're not a fan though are you? You're a floater (forgive the apt pun) and happy to switch between the NRL and the AFL when it suits.

Except some people didn't raise their voices about something which directly affects them, they went over the top on the back of an unfounded rumour which turned out to be untrue.


Monday's report was clearly the result of some sort of conversation between Mark Rylance and David Howes. Only two people know what was actually said in that conversation, but on the back of it the journalist involved felt able to go off and write a story saying "Toulouse will not have to meet qualification criteria."

On the face of it, he appears to have done this without double checking what he thought Howes said – even though it contravened explicitly stated previous policy – with the RFL media dept: however he may have been under deadline pressure, or it may be difficult to contact RFL media officers at the weekend (when games are being payed)?.

Now, I, no more than the rest of you, don't know whether Howes simply had a brain fart and said something in a conversation I don't know the circumstances of which was simply untrue or whether Rylance got the wrong end of the stick and simply misunderstood what was being said.

Two things I would say though:

the statement from the Toulouse officials carries no weight with me at all – these are the people who said a few years ago that they expected to be playing in the 2007-8 Super League season;

similarly, I don't attach a lot of weight to Rylance's editor saying "the RFL have apologised for misleading my reporter" for two reasons: it's still only one side of the story, from a source which has already admitted that reporting what the RFL said is not its strong point

; and in the famous words of Mandy Rice Davis "he would say that, wouldn't he?" – I've never yet known any media organisation, including the ones I've worked for, admit that "we or our reporter got it wrong", it's always "the people we (mis?) quoted got it wrong or misled us".

ATEOTD, like I say, only two people know what was said, and in what circumstances between Rylance and Howes – but the 'special treatment for Toulouse' story which resulted from it turns out to be untrue.

well said mate, i gather that like me you are sick and tired of all the condescending prats who know what is best for our clubs and tell us to forget our allegiences in favour of some hair brained scheme peddled by the likes of the rfl to expand the game at all cost to the detriment of anything or anyone else.