gingerjon

From Wales Online: It's worth mentioning that there have been reports suggesting Finn Russell is earning £1 million per season, as opposed to $1 million. If true, this would make him the top earner in rugby. However, for the purpose of this discussion, we'll base our calculations on the figures provided by Front Office Sports. Basically, they are figures, that appear to be wrong, from a website called Front Office Sports. The link from Wales Online takes you to an older list at the same place.

Okay. It’s one of. And the ERL does not need to be based in it.

It’s all a nice distraction from admiring the technical reasons why the person leading the strategic review can’t become RFL chair, though.

No, we’re pointing out that the European Rugby League is being run from the one European country that means it no longer qualifies for what was its most significant funding stream.

Ireland's okay though: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/living-in-ireland#working-in-ireland

I'd be quite keen to see how other sports and programmes are described.

Unbelievably, there's actually an even *easier* fix!

Indeed. The history of the sport is littered with heartland and heartland adjacent failures. But because we are a sport with groupthink and short term memory failures, it has now become an article of faith that expansion will succeed if only we do it a few streets over where we currently have a club.

We've had plenty of Gooles though. Including Goole whose attendances and results are whelming at best, so far. Trafford, Carlisle, Springfield, Chorley, Blackpool, Huyton, Runcorn, Prescot, Nottingham, Mansfield ...

We've had it on here with people saying that women's sport is the reason why RL can't find sponsors/broadcasters - seemingly wilfully unaware that RL was genuinely ahead of the curve in having women's set-ups (it's now so far behind it's embarrassing). That pie could have come to RL but, no, we had to do our working men's club retro instead. He is right that every conversation, literally every one, about developing the game boils down to "but what about P&R in these highly specific circumstances that are of interest to a bare handful of clubs"

They are more hands on in actually running that, though, I think?

If the ERL can’t apply for EU money because it’s based in the UK then there does seem to be a very easy fix for that.

Take it up with the RFL chair.

Don't Australian teams do well out of non sporting income, though? That's been a thing for years.

The terms of the contract, including the ongoing value of the direct payment and how that payment is calculated is, I think, still not known. Unless you know differently. We have all been going on what has been dripped out publicly - some of which, like the idea that the owners voted for something this significant without reading the details, stretch credibility even if true.

I'm not remotely interested in answering a question you've had answered multiple times on multiple threads before. I am, however, very interested in poking anyone who thinks these canny owners, those smart businessmen who we must admire because they have money, have any credibility left following their desire to be perceived as people who vote for things without reading the details, only to then follow that up with a strategic review into governance that then stumbles because they didn't read the bit about governance that Sport England insist upon. Frankly, it's magnificent.

It's been postponed.

Again, this supposes that the owners are so monumentally dense that they ask no questions beyond a press release. If that's your point of view then fine. But I'd kinda hoped for better.

It’s the same hope that says that the same people who didn’t read the IMG contract before voting for it and who then led a strategic review into poor governance, only to realise none of them understood the Sport England governance protocols, are going to now save rugby league.

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Just when you think it couldn’t get any more barking!

They also appear to have failed to read the bits in the Sport England code about governance. And, being blunt, they still shouldn’t have voted for something without seeing it, given the absolute importance of it for their own clubs. That’s a failure of governance and a failure of sense. They should be included in any “in confidence” aspect because of the material impact on them.

So who is Chair as, presumably, for governance, someone has to be?

Indeed. They should note that rugby league doesn’t feature in the top 30 sports in France. (We should have two teams from France in the system, absolutely. But there is no return there without masses of hard work, even with the success Catalans have had.)

Last rebrand but one did that, I think?