Interesting to see promotion and relegation is on the agenda again for super league. interesting to see where this goes and where the RFL would stand if it was re-introduced and London finished bottom

Cant see London or Cats going it was RFL who wanted them in to start with. Big decision to make I think

A friend of mine works as an accountant and deals with RFL, he told me that franchises will be stopped and it will go back to P&R.

Really hope this happens.

if they do bring it back you would have to deem the license a failure

HOWEVER
we should give credit to the RFL because they, as they often do, looked for a way to improve Rugby League. try to change it for the better and always looking at doing it in different ways. since i've been going in 2004 there have been small and big changes
sometimes they work and sometimes they don't
If you look at the premier league in football it has hardly changed at all (if at all) in its 20 years.
The idea of the license was different and had potential but after 4 years of it something needs to be addressed and going back to the traditional Promotion Relegation might be the best thing to do

My solution would be to bring promotion and relegation back, but to give the promoted team exemption from Relegation for 1 year. This would stop clubs yo-yoing about between the two leagues and making 'panic buys' for 1 season only.

I was a fan of franchising at first, but the way that the financial problems at Bradford were missed or ignored casts a bad light on franchises, and I think on the field it has made clubs get lazy. London for example are still playing like they coulden't care less, whereas if their jobs were on the line with the threat of relegation we'd see performances that had passion at least.

Interesting one. Clubs can now presumably ditch ground development plans if they don't need them specifically for a franchise.

A two tier Super League might work. Two divisions of 10, a bit like how county cricket is set up.

Personally I don't think the franchise system has worked when you look at the financial plight of most of the clubs. Championship clubs would be the main people to benefit from scraping it but when sky turn round and say we want London in the top tier what happens. I certainly look forward to the RFL operating enquiry.

Apart from some poor reporting on a BBC webpage, can anyone please point me to where P&R is being considered because there's only cursory mention in the original report.

The solution is not to reduce the number of clubs in Superleague, it is to improve the grassroots identification, nurturing and development of talent. More money should be thrown at the youth and amateur game to assist this. Reducing the number of teams in the elite competition is a rank admission, not just of failure but also blindness to any potential solution

The "financial plight of most of the clubs" is not the fault of franchising. It is quite simply, totally and utterly the fault of pis[is[/i-poor management.

Bring in P&R and you will get even more clubs with financial problems and declining gates, because most clubs will no longer be able to plan for three years. Only a few clubs will become richer and more powerful like we had before or have people got short memories.

Its does not work anymore

I would love promotion & relegation to come back.

We have a winner.

How many clubs have lost a licence under the present system for failure to implement ground development plans?

The reality of licensing has been that if you're in, you stay in until you go bust. And even then maybe you can stay as a newco.

Bradford Bulls have employed people, players coaches staff, stopped tax from their wages and then failed to send this money to the taxman. Not only does this cheat society it cheats the rest of Super League. B licence, what a joke. Do you know this club was paying Matt Orford £580,000 for a 3 year stint but couldn't/wouldn't pay it's taxes?

If they are not relegated then the message is clear - if you don't want to pay your taxes no problem. But who would ever trust a Rugby League club?

Licensing was supposed to stop clubs spending money to avoid relegation yet we find it doesn't even stop clubs cheating the taxman.

By any objective measure licensing has been an abject failure. Salford in their shiny new meccano set are on the edge of administration with crowds down. On the pitch I haven't noticed us challenging Australia, we can't even beat the exiles.

P & R won't solve all that but it will help bring back integrity to the sport and fair play for ALL clubs.

Good points. What I was saying was that if nothing else the threat of franchise loss has been a catalyst for improvements at Salford and Saints, hopefully at Cas and Wakefield and Craven Park. The RFL wrote to 5 clubs to warn them a couple of years ago. Just saying that without this motivation, maybe clubs would have been less pro active.

One of the aims of franchising was to provide security to clubs to blood more young players. Not worked. To provide more financial stability. Not worked either.

P&R deffo for me. I hate the current system and the way you win feck all for winning the league.

P&R would just encourage more reckless spending. The only solution is to increase clubs' incomes or reduce the salary cap. The RFL needs to spend some of it's record income on a team of proper accountants/auditors and stop paying lip service to clubs financial situations

Apart from some poor reporting on a BBC webpage, can anyone please point me to where P&R is being considered because there's only cursory mention in the original report.

The solution is not to reduce the number of clubs in Superleague, it is to improve the grassroots identification, nurturing and development of talent. More money should be thrown at the youth and amateur game to assist this. Reducing the number of teams in the elite competition is a rank admission, not just of failure but also blindness to any potential solution'"

It hasn't been decided yet, and has to be voted on by the club chairmen, so I'm afraid that your friend is mistaken.

If we go back to P&R there will need to be a radical shift in the way that RFL funds are distributed between SL and the Championship otherwise it won't work. You'll just get the same clubs going up and down every season and eventually going bust.

That won't change under P&R. In fact it might be further devalued if some of the schemes for restructuring SL are adopted.

P&R sends every club back to the days where we buy everyone we can in the hope of staving off relegation and the kids in the 20s can fek off as the clubs cannot plan ahead or bring them through any more en masse, if we reitroduce it then we will see the return of the journeyman aussie filling all gaps in clubs
think back to how horrible all that was .......
the greatest thing to happen in SL was that 3 year ability to plan a bit and not panic if your in the bottom 4.....
planning is the root of all business plans and RL is no different, if you do not have time to plan then you get pish poor performance, the rich get richer and the poor run around panicing like headless chickens

I loooooove chicken.

The problem SL faces with promotion and relegation is that it had become an increasing rarity that the promoted team could compete, and I can't see why that would not continue to be the case, if not be even more apparent. It's not like in football where the relegated team can attempt to largely keep the squad together, gain re-promotion and give it a good go, the difference in salary cap means that pretty much any player worth a decent salary leaves. All that happens in practice is that the decent players from the relegated side get picked up by the established SL sides and the rest sign for the promoted side and get relegated again (just ask Gray Viane).