Decision time coming up for Championship & League 1 clubs

Upfront: The League Express opinion – Monday 7th December 2020

It seems strange for a promotion battle to be fought out not on the field, but in an application form.

After Toronto Wolfpack’s exclusion from the 2021 Super League competition, however, and Super League’s decision that it wanted twelve teams in its competition in 2021, the obvious solution was to invite applications from ambitious Championship clubs that felt they were well qualified to fill that vacant spot.

In this week’s League Express we invited each of the six clubs that have applied to tell our readers in around 300 words just why their club was the one that should be announced as the successful candidate on 18 December, just a week before Christmas.

Click here to see the statement that each club has made.

It’s particularly interesting to see the different approaches the clubs have taken.

And which of them will be successful?

At the moment that is anyone’s guess, but it is fair to say that they each have their own particular strengths and inevitably they angle their statements towards what those strengths are.

Meanwhile there is also a battle among five League 1 clubs to fill the spot that will become vacant when the successful Championship club is promoted into Super League.

That decision is due to be made this Thursday and again the decision will be made by a panel appointed by the RFL.

Again, all five League 1 clubs have their own particular strengths and we can be certain that whichever of them is successful, they will surely enhance the Championship competition.

Meanwhile, one person who has enormously enhanced the reputation of Rugby League in the last six days is former Leeds Rhinos captain Kevin Sinfield, who has already completed six of the seven marathons he has committed himself to for his old friend Rob Burrow.

Kevin was aiming to raise at least £77,777 for Rob and MND, the relevant charity. But it now looks as though he will raise at least ten times that amount.

It’s a remarkable achievement by a remarkable man, and, as we say on the front page of this week’s issue, that is the spirit of Rugby League.

Watch out for our own tribute to Rob Burrow in a forthcoming edition of League Express.

The above content is also available in the regular weekly edition of League Express, on newsstands every Monday in the UK and as a digital download. Click here for more details.