ON Tuesday the RFL will hold a Council meeting at Salford and they will elect a new board of directors.

It would be the biggest surprise of the year if the proposed directors were not all elected unanimously, with Nigel Wood elected as the Chair of the organisation.

But then it’s down to business and in my view there are some pressing issues that the new RFL will have to deal with.

One of the first is the appointment of a new chief executive.

I understand that Abi Ekoku, the current interim chief executive, has not applied for the job on a permanent basis.

He has been reluctant to confirm that decision, but I suspect that because he lives in London with his family and has business interests in the capital, a permanent move to the RFL’s Manchester HQ doesn’t appeal to him, although I’m quite certain he has enjoyed his role since his appointment.

But now it seems he will be replaced and it will be up to the RFL’s new board of directors to make the appointment.

Should they make it immediately or wait awhile?

It’s an important question, because the new CEO will have a hands-on role and the directors themselves are non-executive.

With the various current issues confronting the RFL it would be dangerous to appoint someone who had little understanding of those issues and their impact on the clubs in the short term.

So what issues are we talking about?

One of the first must surely be the appointment of the England coach who will take charge of the national team for the World Cup later this year.

Willie Peters appears to be the favourite for the job and I can understand why, although there is also growing support for the joint appointment of Warrington pair Sam Burgess and Steve McNamara, who appear to be complementing each other so well at the Halliwell Jones Stadium and achieving very positive results, although it is still very early in the season.

The next thing that the RFL has to move quickly to sort out is the supposed interest from the NRL in buying a stake in the game in the northern hemisphere.

The fact that a bid is on its way has been rumoured for a long time but so far one hasn’t appeared.

To accept the NRL having a controlling role in the British game would be such a departure from what has gone before that it would have to be examined very precisely. But until the details of a bid are actually received it is impossible to do that.

With Nigel Wood taking over the Chairmanship of the RFL tomorrow, my advice to him would be to lay down his own timetable for receiving the NRL’s bid and for reaching a decision on whether to accept it.

The complicating factor in all this is that the NRL appears to want to base its bid on the fact that it could bundle the Super League rights together with the NRL rights when securing its next broadcasting deal.

The problem is that the NRL’s current TV contract runs out at the end of the 2027 season, while Super League’s current deal with Sky Sports runs out at the end of this season. So the RFL has to move quickly to secure its next contract.

We all know that the current deal pays £21.5 million per year and I suspect that the RFL will be hoping for a considerable uplift on that figure, to something like at least £35 million per year, which would still be below the £40 million per year being paid almost ten years ago.

But I can’t see how the RFL can agree a deal with Sky or any other broadcaster without knowing the precise terms of the offer from the NRL, which might divert Super League away from Sky.

If I were in charge of the RFL it would take a massive offer from the NRL and from its favoured broadcaster, which would presumably be DAZN, to persuade me to move the game away from Sky Sports.

The other major issue that the new board of directors will have to confront sooner rather than later is the status of the Rugby League Challenge Cup.

The current contract with Wembley Stadium to stage the Challenge Cup expires in 2027.

There has been a considerable amount of speculation that the RFL might take the Challenge Cup Final away from Wembley after 2027.

Will it go that far?

One of the key factors will obviously be whether Wembley wants to retain the Challenge Cup Final and what terms it is prepared to offer.

But the RFL might decide to downsize anyway to a smaller stadium, either in London or elsewhere.

I think that would be a mistake, because the attraction of the Challenge Cup has always been that the final takes place at Wembley. Players and spectators place a high value on the trip to the national stadium, although not enough of them make the journey these days.

Nonetheless, it’s hard to imagine that the status of the Challenge Cup would be maintained if the final was moved elsewhere.

The RFL board also has to consider the wider question of how to generate more interest in the earlier rounds of the Challenge Cup.

Are there any steps that could be taken to restore its former glory.

As I’ve written before in this column, in my view the Challenge Cup should revert to a later time in the season.

Whether the RFL directors agree with me remains to be seen.