CASTLEFORD TIGERS have slowly begun their rebuild towards the all-important club grading deadline at the end of the 2024 season.
A few months ago, the West Yorkshire club were distressed over admin errors that saw the Tigers being given 12.16 points in the indicative rankings, which would have meant their omission from Super League.
Though the Tigers’ appeal over that decision was unsuccessful, the RFL acknowledged an error and the club say that their real standing sits at 12.91 points, which would have placed them eleventh.
Now, Castleford’s managing director Mark Grattan has revealed what he hopes the club’s score will be in 2024 following a significant investment from local businessman Martin Jepson.
“We are officially at 12.91 points, the owner investment points and some other finance points that we will go for will get us into the mid-13s. The stadium point will get us into the mid-14s and we will start drawing down the first part of the council’s £2 million,” Grattan told The COYFCast podcast.
“I just think that will be after the New Year waiting for that to be finalised, that will push us to 14.5 points. To get us to a Grade A, the full development needs to come on board financially, that will change us and push us that extra point.
“With a fair win performance and with crowds of 7,800 through the turnstiles every game, that would get us into a Grade A license but that will be extremely difficult to do. We will go for it as we always do.
“Martin’s investment takes us comfortably into the 13s, the stadium gets us into the 14s. We need the full stadium development to get the extra points in terms of finance and percentage of turnover that isn’t central distribution to get us into Grade A territory.
“If we were a mile down the road we could put out feet up and say we are a Grade A but because of catchment we can’t.”
Despite the opposition to the catchment pillar, which penalises Castleford for being located in the same local authority area as two other professional clubs, Grattan doesn’t believe that it will be changed ahead of the real grading scores given at the end of 2024.
“I brought it up at the RFL meeting along with other people, there will be some slight changes but we don’t believe there will be changes to catchment,” he said.
“What could make people at IMG or the RFL take more notice is if we get to a point where a difference between us and another club who is a Grade A is simply the postcode.
“If you swap a postcode with a club and they become a Grade B and you become a Grade A it certainly needs looking at then at that point.”
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