Quote ="Chris B"To be honest I purely think the franchising system is nothing more than an elaborate scam for the RFL to cherry pick the members of SL.
I don't believe it is fair and it is about the furthest thing away from being transparent. Men in suits with agendas.'"
Spot on Chris...the criteria for the licenses will fit the clubs and not vice versa. Mind you Widnes will surely be accomodated on the strength of their stadium despite, as appears likely, never topping the championship table or winning the GF. Whereas even if Cas and Wakey again finish in the top 8 (remember if you can that we are talking about a sporting competition) there will be just one spot for the Wakefield area and as it looks as though both will struggle stadia-wise the RFL will probably offer a franchise to a merged club only:they are already sharpening the knives for Cas anyway with the imposition of fines for massively over-hyped crowd control problems. That will facillitate inclusion of Widnes (and one other if Cas/Wakey decided to go solo in NL) and retention of Salford. While I could live with the former (in view of past injustices/misfortunes suffered by the Chemics/Vikings) the latter would be hard to stomach on any level as would the continued pointless presence of Quins, Crusaders et al.