FEATHERSTONE ROVERS chairman Mark Campbell has called on the RFL to channel more money the way of amateur clubs instead of expansion in a bid to increase player participation and income levels.
The recent Sky Sports broadcasting package saw rugby league sign a £20mil-a-year deal, nine years after a similar agreement was worth £40 million.
For Campbell, that kind of reduction isn’t good enough as he urged for change in the governing body’s attitude.
“Featherstone’s distribution is down to levels of where it was 20 years ago,” Campbell told Rugby League World Magazine.
“To put things into perspective, I could fill a car up for £20 twenty years ago. It’s now £120 to fill your car up.
“How much were your electric bills 20 years ago, compared to today? How much is your gas bill compared to 20 years ago? Yet we’ve gone back to getting the same money we were getting 20 years ago.
“And yet, they want to paint it and say the sport is in a real good place. But there’s less and less people playing rugby league. There are more and more amateur clubs folding.
“The RFL would be better off investing in some of the amateur clubs and giving them a helping hand, than wasting money on expansion.”
On the field, Campbell feels that Featherstone will never have as good a chance of getting promoted again as they did so in 2023.
Going down 36-26 to the London Broncos in the Championship play-off semi-final wasn’t good enough, but Campbell had already jiggled about with coaching staff just over a month prior, bringing in James Ford to replace Sean Long as head coach.
Now, an overhaul at the Millennium Stadium is underway.
“That was our moment. This was our year to go up and get promoted. We’ll never get an opportunity like that because there wasn’t another Leigh, there was no Toronto, nobody that spent loads and loads of money,” Campbell continued.
“We were the big spenders. We were in a prime spot and we should’ve been promoted with the quality we had in the team.
“If you have the quality but you don’t have the mindset it won’t happen. Mindset is a hard thing to change and I felt it was the time for us to have a total refresh.
“We felt like we needed to change the whole culture…we won the league by a mile, but I didn’t feel like we had a winning culture, or a winning mentality at the club. I felt like we were winning games because we had spent the most money.”
Find the full interview with Campbell in Rugby League World Magazine:
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