Once again Roofs you demonstrate what a bell end you are ..... and by the way, hows the East Hull Aussie Project going ?

with you 100% here.

surprising you posted such good sense.

Last night 'Wales Today' said that new owners could be in place by the end of the month. I know I'm going to regret asking this, but has anyone any idea who they might be talking about?

W Crusaders?

Indeed. Just look at how association football has died on its ar$e since Potsmouth went into administration.

btw: keep the insults down everyone.

Because it's their job, as the governing body.

News Flash for you - If the clowns at the RFL have their way, trying to expand too quickly and at the expense of heartland clubs, RL will end up more like Woolworths then Tescos.

Nobody in their right mind watches rugby league because of admiration for the administrators who couldn't run a pee up in a brewery. We all do it for the love of a club - clubs we have associated with through generations of our families, not some manufactured club elevated to the top table too quickly and constantly being helped while other clubs are left to wither away and die.

Put Heartlands clubs at risk for the gamble of expansion and we could be left with an 8 team superleague.

You likely will be anyway.

Those clubs with a rich owner, or who have got to where they now are by having a rich owner.

You think only a few would walk away? Bigger blinkers than the RFL I'd say. CC Finals, Internationals, SL games are the ones I have currently walked away from, I will however attempt to do what I can to keep the club I support in business

I think you're right, spot on in fact. It is simply absurd to complain about how the game and clubs are run when in fact it is the responsibility (duty even) of the people who run these businesses to return the best financial results they can and the best sporting results they can.

Which is why I can't understand how some people can bang on and on about how many non British nationals any given club may choose to employ. It's not as if there's any duty of the clubs (businesses) to do anything other than "do what they see fit to make it work....and become MORE PROFITABLE"

They're all crackers aren't they GF?

Not to speak for gutterfax but unsurprisingly Bill you have made a fundemental mistake in your comprehension of his point.

He said the RFL were to run the game as whole as a business, RL in competition with RU, Cricket, Football etc.

Not that RL clubs need to compete in business off the pitch rather than working together. SL spent about 10 years learning that race to spend the most on the most overseas players doesnt work and damages the game, it seems because our friends from HKR joined us late, we need to teach them it all over again. Hopefully it wont take them another 10 years.

Well there is not much, as a sport we can do to keep you as a fan is there.

Whatever the RFL do they will end up alienating someone, it seems common sense to get rid of those who will only attend and support the game in a very narrow set of circumstances.

Can't argue with that to be honest but the latest change in operational rules to counteract an impending administration is quite frankly desperate. They would be much better scrapping the whole licensing fiasco and communicating a new edict - "membership by committe invitation". At least then they won't have to keep changing a silly set of rules in order to shoe horn in their own choice of clubs - they can do it behind closed doors - which is pretty much what they're doing now; only they're making a right cow's bollox of it.

Okay, so what proof is there that Crusaders is NOT a doomed project?

They've had nothing but problems since been in SL.

Hull KR are doing great thanks - progressing each year as good, real clubs do.

They should have done it to start with, the reason they didnt was the outcry over the 'closed shop' SL from those outside, So to try and appease them we got this halfway house which in the end has only caused more problems and limited the benefits of franchising.

The system should be, as you say, membership by invitation, any club, at any time can bid for a place, if they can make a good contribution to the league, or have the potential to do so, they are in. If a club is failling it is put on notice and if it doesnt improve it is dropped.

The problems and the main divisions dont seem to come from franchising itself, but the 'competitive' aspect of pitting clubs against each other, something many insisted was integral to the game but seems to have brought 0 benefits and lots of division.

Where is your proof that the real owner of Hull KR is NOT an invisible chocolate button control a puppet Neil Hudgell?

I'm off for a lie down

Well, we all have to sensible some of the time.

If you think about it though, it would benefit the lower league teams aswell. Its fairly obvious Widnes will be the club promoted and has been for a couple of years, why not tell them at the end of last season they would be admitted for the 2012 season, giving them time to build, if they were sensible they can fill their side with youngsters who can get experience before entering SL, it would give them an opportunity to build their support toward SL and they would be in a much better position to negotiate sponsorship, corporate etc, and you have two years to build excitment in Widnes. The rest can concentrate on actually winning games rather than trying to get to a final or win something because it then allows you to apply for SL.

The RFL would also have been able to say to Widnes in 2009, we have reservations because of A B C, lets see where you are in a year rather than them spending 3 years doing not a lot towards their aim.

It also means the RFL can approach SKY saying we are admitting Widnes, we want an increase to 15 teams if they cant make a deal work, we have 4 clubs who know they are 'on notice' who should then be judged to see who drops out. But i dont think we would need to,

Just heard a solid rumour that one of the two serious parties interested in taking over Crusaders RL is the Bridgend based business consortium that offered to take them over originally.
Could we be looking at the rebirth of the Celtic Crusaders back in the club's home town?
There'd be no Samuel or Turner this time around, so no reason it couldn't work.

I imagine that the other is the current owners in some other slightly different configuration.

A North vs South tug o' war on the cards?

Grendel get on your bike you hideous troll. The voice inside your head is not an inside source you clown.

Looks like the rules have already been changed to accomodate Crusaders. From Sporting Life:
"But, crucially, the club will still be allowed to apply for one of the next round of Super League licences that will be awarded from 2012.
That follows a recent meeting of Super League representatives who voted to change the rules that had previously disqualified any club entering administration from any subsequent application, a fate which befell Widnes in 2008."

Our sport will never, ever be taken seriously until teams are treated equally and rules are not changed in favour of certain clubs.
Not only are Crusaders given an on-field advantage with a different restriction on overseas players, they seem to have the luxury of being able to break a rule and simply then get them re-written.
I don't know why we don't just change the rules of the game to suit them - make the defending team withdraw 15 metres instead of 10, only give the opposition three tackles before the turn-over and allow them to play with 15 players?
I know it sounds stupid, but the RFL have crossed a line in re-writing rules to accomodate a failing team, who knows what will be next?

That's EXACTLY what they've done, albeit not put them in the first team totally, probably also having been given the nod from the RFL some time ago.

What galls me is that a club can enter a form of insolvency, and thereby escape paying monies due to HMRC, and then be allowed to continue as if nothing had happened - when other clubs are expected to settle what they owe to HMRC. It is totally unfair on those clubs that conduct their affairs responsibly.

Most especially if the monies owed are monies that were never the club's in the first place, like PAYE and NIC deducted from employees and VAT collected from customers. Using such monies to finance your business, and then not being able to pay them over, is and always has been theft in my book.

We might as well be honest and say that "SL shall consist of such clubs as the RFL and the existing SL clubs shall determine is in what they see as the games/their best interests"

Its only narrow now due to my views on the way the game is run, its as simple as that. SL is now a closed shop and in effect a different sport. The RFL have alienated two thirds of its own member clubs. The structure for the passing of votes makes it pointless for Championship clubs to vote, having said that it appears that the RFL ignore the results of any votes taken and plough on regardless. Just because my opinion is different to yours does'nt make it any less important. Or have the RFL taken up the maxim, if you don't like it feck off. Due to the cock up with the last awards of franchising they thought they would be clever and introduce criteria that fitted only one club (Widnes) AND the with the most comical coverup of all time, a month before a SL clubs goes into Admin, they get the SL clubs to vote to remove the criteria of refusing a licence to any club that has been in/ or is in administration from the licensing process.

No matter how you put it it is Corruption of the most obvious kind.