FEATHERSTONE ROVERS are set to redevelop the Millennium Stadium in a groundbreaking new plan.
Rovers were one of the losers in the IMG grading system, finishing in 18th place with a score of just 10.75.
With that score in mind, it means that Featherstone will have to find over three points from somewhere to even get near 12th-placed Super League side Salford Red Devils’ 13.97.
In the past, Featherstone have been one of the major critics of the IMG system, with chief executive Martin Vickers last year telling League Express: “We have such a strong model here for continuous improvement so this is not anything of us being fearful of improvement. We have aspirations and goals to be a category A.
“We do feel, though, that we have to have a level playing field and have a chance because the same four or five teams dwindling at the bottom of Super League have had their chance already.
“I feel there is a ceiling of a B Championship club on reaching the same score as those clubs.”
After losing the Championship semi-final to the London Broncos in 2023, Featherstone were consigned to the second tier once more in 2024.
But plans, under new owner Paddy Handley, have been put in place to score more stadium and facility points with a new redeveloped Millennium Stadium.
Handley told Rovers TV: “It’s with sadness that I’m going to develop the Post Office Road end because I know it holds a lot of history.
“But, for us to reach the level I believe we should be at – Super League – we have to look at other ways of making it more commercially active.
“It has to be commercially viable. Commercially what the new stand will generate will be a ground-floor restaurant that covers 240 people with 15 or 16 commercial boxes that will sit above it.
“That will give us a gross turnover of over £500,000 and we see there being a high percentage of profit within that turnover which will return to the club and which will help with our IMG score and some of our historical debt.”
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