gingerjon

I have a memory that agencies (IMG even) have been used in the past for international tournament rights as the IRL don't have the capability so it would make sense that the IRL have basically asked/paid a commission to the ARLC to do it.

Presumably they're including the women's and wheelchair in there too, which wouldn't have been in there for 2017?

The current world champions are Argentina. The team who has won the World Cup the most is Brazil. Nobody is going to claim that the Brazilian and Argentinian leagues are close to the best in the world or that the constant strength of the Netherlands and Portugal is because of the quality of their domestic league competition.

I'm reading that as $10m in 2017 to $20m in 2026? You'd hope for a bigger boost but we are where we are.

It was you who introduced the idea of only one fifty point win in the past 'ten years or so'. It's actually a quarter of the games played in that period. A 35 point average is still, basically, six converted tries and not a close game. It would be an ideal warm up for the Ashes in my opinion. We just need to accept that France are really not very good most of the time and seem to have no clear pathway - either internal that they control, or external like a strong ERL/IRL - to sort that.

Two of the last eight games, both in the last ten years, are by more than 40. The average winning margin over that period is actually 40.25. France have, in those eight games, hit double figures twice. (https://www.rugbyleagueproject.org/head2head/england-vs-france/all/resultsbrief.html) Not that England shouldn't have a test against France before the Australia series, they should, just that we already know the score.

We'll just have to base our mythical Irish ERL HQ in Burt, County Donegal then.

The one in Dublin comes with access to a 500k grant. (But, yes, Dublin is insane for prices).

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.