The penalty for going into adminstration shouldn't just be a points deduction, especially when another club is knocking on the door having done what has been asked of it. I sound like a baby - but i'll say it anyway. It's just not fair.

Since when did they award licenses based on who has the best stadiums?

From the outside the RFL do look like a complete bunch of clowns. Richard Lewis saw expansion as his legacy to RL - noble aims, but he has proved he got it wrong and has shown no evidence that he can bring genuine expansion to the game. Time to move on for him I would say. Licencing should be a bedrock, a solid set of criteria that clubs have to match. Expansion should have a long term, sustainable plan. Neither exist at the moment. He could have replaced Wakefield with Halifax and sent out a serious message to clubs that they had a real danger of losing a licence. The message now is, just muddle along as you've always done, don't worry about it. Lewis should go and go now before he does real long term damage to our game. The Crusaders fiasco has happened on his watch and is a result of his actions. He has to carry the can.

The assessment criteria was no insolvency events between 2008 and 2010. Wakefield had none in that time period.

To the Wakefield fans - congratulations. Never nice to see a club struggling and you must be delighted.

To the Crusaders fans - you must be gutted. I wonder how much you were persuaded to do this by the RFL.

To my own club Halifax. Why are we one bit surprised by this? The first rule of the RFL these days is to ignore the first rule. Past decisions have no bearing on future ones. The goalposts have been moved so many times nobody knows where they are. Sometimes I look at the RFL and it seems more like the WWE!!

To the Directors at Halifax. Keep up the great work and you never know, one day out time may come.

Yep, you do!

Absolutely spot on.

Green light given for financial irresponsibility now. Precedent set.

Widnes must feel gutted that they had to wait 3 long years - the game is very fortunate that a man like Steve O'Connor didn't walk away from the whole shambles.

So the message is clear to SL clubs.Going into administration is no longer significant or 'very significant', (as Lewis said about Widnes) and will not harm your future application.Shathouses.

So O'Conner is fine whilst Glover is not. The rules were changed ironically to save Crusaders and certainly not Wakefield - live with it as tht's what we were being told to do before sanity took charge.

Just having shiney seats doesn't make you a better option than Wakefield.
I have sympathy for Halifax but I don't see why the OP thinks they should be in over us.

Halifax have done everything asked to get to the point of applying, not to necessarily get a license.

The process is meant to be transparent. We'll see.

I'm pleased for Wakefield's fans and feel really sorry for Halifax, but as a neutral observer this looks like a desperately unfair decision to me.

I'd have a little more sympathy for Halifax if they hadn't fudged their way past the 2500 average attendance criterion by having a couple of thousand extra people mysteriously turn up for their last home game of the year. And it seems like only a couple of years since I was asked to chuck coins in a bucket to save halifax.

A couple of years get a grip at least 5, 3 years ago wakefield promised a new stadia, 3 years later still no brick laid so they have lied on 2 applications and also gone bust.

This game is incredibly corrupt and if the crusaders had only pulled out yesterday then the announcement should have been postponed to be re-evaluated.

Some of the reaction on here is laughable, from the RFL is corrupt to Rupert Murdoch decided who gets licence and who doesn't



Deary me. I'm as surprised as anyone that Wakefield survived and got a licence but then I'm even more surprised that Crusaders decided last minute to withdraw their application, so late was it not even the team knew it was going to happen.

How many people who are blasting the RFL for their 'decision' have seen and deliberated over all the licence applications?!?

People also assuming that Wakefield had to be the team that dropped out, why? Let's be realistic there was 13 applications put before the committee and the best applications have know been selected but to assume it was Wakefield that had to go is stupid, anyone was in danger of going if they didn't meet the criteria. Regardless of what people think of Wakefield's application for all we know 'Fax's application might now been as watertight as we think it is. The RFL don't just sit there and pick whoever the feel like and the selection has to be focussing on the long term, these licence's are for 3 years - maybe the Wakey bid looks a stronger, long term applications that Fax application.

That point's a bit irrelevant though.

They must have decided that Fax's proposal was worse than Wakey's. Presumably, Crusaders would have retained their place (I'm guessing) and Wakefield would have been kicked out, had the Crusaders not withdrawn.

Crusaders asked to withdraw because their finances wouldnt last three years? the application was too weak to suceed anyway? i would hope crusaders jumped before they were pushed!

But didn't they in their previous guise advise on rail privatisation!?

I think people are getting carried away. The RFL have a hard job - as so few clubs (if any) meet decent criteria or even have the potential to become free-standing viable businesses. Accordingly, the RFL will always have to make decisions not on who has the strongest case but who has the least weak case. They also have to make decisions in that light at particular points in time based on real-world assessments then. It is this which probably accounts for the apparent inconsistencies.

fax decided to bin off there youth development section to spend all there money on the first team, why should that short term decision be rewarded as part of a process thats supposed to be about long term planning?

What are you on about, get a fookin' grip. So now because Halifax doesn't get a licence the game is corrupt?

Pathetic. What was there to be re-evaluated? Crusaders withdrawn because their finances were not strong enough for a three year licence so you would assume their application was too weak to be successful anyway so they pulled out. Clearly Halifax's application wasn't good enough, accept it and move on.

The RFL it would appear had no early warning of the Crusdaers falling on their sword, so had very little room to manouvre in the time scale. The remit was one club to be brought up, Widnes and one to be removed this has now happened. I can understand the Fax fans position, but it is bad enough getting one club up and running by next season from now without doubling the problem.

Clearly Wakey are in a better position to compete next season then Fax are and for once the RFL have taken the correct course for the good of the game. The RFL had taken the only logical decision they have fulfilled the remit correctly with Widnes coming up and they now have three season to turn it around or they will go next time ( Quins permitting ).

It can not have been easy and the Crusaders players/fans must be very upset by the news the timing could not have been worse. The game will have some very tough decisions to take in the coming years as the world changes for the worse, this could turn out to be one of the easier ones.

Psst.
He owns about 1/3 of BSkyB.
So it maybe a lot of things but 'his' isn't one of them.
And ATM I doubt very much if the chairman or the CEO are returning good old Ruperts calls

Its an absoulute disgrace, and if I was a Fax fan id be absoulutely fuming. How the hell can Wakefield possibly have a better application than Halifax??? Somebody please enlighten me. Belle Vue is an absoulute dump, they have been stringing people along with this "we are getting a new ground" for years, youth development and crowds are also pathetic.

So, Wakefield are going to play at Belle Vue again next season..........................What a farce.

I'm very amused by the notion that Wakefield are so cosy with the RL higher ups that they are prepaired to reject the strong aplication of Fax in favour of the weak one by Wakefield - just tell me why would they do this? How would this be in the best interests of the game?

Im sorry for those Fax fans that have had their ambitions dashed today but it defies logic that the RFL would do anything other than to award the 14 licences to the best 14 aplications.