How will it effect the clubs in the Championships ? , how many of us are paying ' image rights ' ?

From what I gather it's more a case of former image rights payments. The HMRC closed the loophole so all sports clubs started working around the new rules but the HMRC wants back payment on previous instances.

RFL jumping in to help who ?

So which clubs in the Championship will have paid players image right payments ?

There's a difference between the state of the game and the state of an individual club. Wakey's problems are despite having more support from the RFL than ever. If they fail, their SL place will go to the best of the three championship club applications. Chances are a Wakefield professional club would survive in some form (how many times have we gone bust... twice? at least?).

Most of the member clubs plead for money most of the time, because for the most part they are run for the short term.

But its not just one club is it.

Crusaders
Wakefield
Blackpool
Whitehaven
Keighley
Oldham
Batley

We also know that HKR have debts somewhere between 2 an 3mill

All those have either gone or had serious issues with HMRC amongst others....and they are only the ones we know about.

dont forget quins who are 100% dependent on one mans generosity.

Think you could say the same about a club nearer to your heart.

The thing is though Joe , that 2 years ago we increased the number of clubs in the top tier , since then we have had one club fold ( twice in reality ) and another announce severe financial difficulties , we also know of several others that are all struggling , all this with an extra 6 million pounds per season in SL since

Add to this several lower tier clubs folding and all but one or two struggling

Hardly " Everything is rosy " wouldn't you say

iv'e no doubts at all frank that AT has invested an awful lot of money into the infrastructure of the club but do you think he's bankrolling us the same as hughes is at quins ?.

if hughes pulls out of quins they'll cease to exist,do you think that would happen to us?.

I dont.

Well I just know it is a lot and to answer your question without AT I would rather not think about it quite honestly.

we both agree on the importance of AT to leigh rl.
this clubs built on more than one mans money frank.

There's plenty of us in that boat j.c.

OK, open question:

What is the RFL supposed to do about its profligate clubs?

This is the state of the game:

There is more money in the game than ever before. The clubs receive more than ever before.
We have 3 games a week on telly
Our sport draws almost double the tv audience of rugby union, it's closest rival
We have 7 Challenge Cup games a year on terrestrial telly
Our cup final is the centrepiece of terrestrial sports coverage on that day
We have a unique event (Magic) to open our season that covers every game live
All our England internationals are covered live, regardless of where in the world they happen
We have major sponsorship from family-friendly sponsorts (Engage, Barr, Gilette, Co-Op, Northern Rail)
We have the biggest per-player Development grant of any sport
We have a world cup here in 2013 that the Government has guaranteed to underwrite
England are top 3 in the world. Wales are 4th. Ireland and Scotland are in the top 12.
We are developing the international game in France, Italy, Germany, Serbia, Czech, Norway, Jamaica, Russia, Georgia, Lebanon, the USA, South Africa, Canada, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
We have a major biannual home international competition against the world's best (four nations)
we have a unique annual world club competition
our two major finals were both sold out this year
For the SL clubs, they have (had) three years guaranteed in the top flight.
We make an annual profit.

That is (ALL) the work of the RFL.

Against that framework, the majority of clubs, in both SL and Championship, do not balance their budgets. Several are in financial straights and would have gone bankrupt without the RFL advancing them money.

How do we solve that?

I love this quote



We are a long way off being 2nd let alone 1st in the world

How many countries actually play the game to level worth watching.

The way something is put can make anything sound good, when really they are only papering over the cracks. The cost of sponsorship to the Co-op and Northern Rail is very cheap if this sport is as prominent as you think it used to be. Lower leagues have been seriously undersold. To put the Co-op sponsorship in perspective, Nigel Wood pays himself more than twice what it costs the Co-op for a year

Three countries have won the RL world cup. Four have won the RU world cup.
Four nations have made a RL world cup final. Five have made a union final.
All we're missing is a strong South Africa.

Yep, only three nations could win our competition at the moment, but we'll be in the top three nations in a 14-team world cup finals that has qualification tournaments involving another half a dozen nations. Go back 20 years and tell me it was better when the World Cup was - at most - GB, NZ, Oz, France and PNG.

Papering over the cracks? Or pointing to a real success in the growth of our game over the last 2 decades. Depends whether you start with a glass half full or a glass half drained (and sour).

We're not a long way of second, we're not a long way of first. NZ are stronger than they've ever been, and neither Oz or NZ act to develop the world game as we have by splitting GB into four (eg they are very happy to play islanders rather than encouraging the growth of the game in Tonga, Fiji, Samoa and the Cook Islands). But we go into home tests with NZ expecting to win (Four Nations last time around?) and if when we beat Australia it's a turn up but not a shock.

It's not our fault that RL is an unforgiving sport... football shocks happen all the time because you can put 10 men behind the ball and because a lot depends on luck and decisions in a low-scoring sport (ask Newcastle, Sunderland, etc). Union scores can be kept down by killing possession and running down the clock. But in our game a team with a 5% advantage will just keep scoring, so even league games can end up with a 50 point win.

Fascinating. Would you like to tell us (a) how much Nigel Wood gets paid; (b) how much the Co-Op sponsorship is per annum and (c) where you found this information?

I think Mr Woods salary was in the RFL accounts that were published

The Co oP deal is 4 k per televised game , so times that by around 25 matches

Not 100 percent , but thereabouts

To answer your first question , set rules for all , and stick to them , I know that causes different problems , given the intent to expand , but that's the deal I'm afraid , and a bit less ' spin ' , which we have discussed before

f**kin brilliant.i follow a profligate club.
I wish someone had told me before i bought my season ticket and shirt.

Do you mean Crusaders or Blackpool?

We're much better now than we have been in the past. Remember when we owned HP and the training pitch where B&Q is? That's millions of pounds of real estate gone in the last 22 years.

And the rest

Only if you sell it

Depending upon how far you want to extend the term 'profiligate' you could easily include around 10 SL clubs in the mix, let alone a host of other clubs dancing with Administration and the Revenue.

I deliberatley chose those two clubs because they're the only ones (unless I am mistaken) that have either winding up petitions or were placed in the hands of the liquidators and then were subsequently reborn under a different guise. Or not, in Blackpool's case.