mrfranco

Unfortunately I can't remember which podcast i heard the club's head honcho being interviewed on a year or two ago (I think it may have been the BBC RL podcast), but he was talking about applying for League 1. Albeit he didn't sound like he had much in place, more an idea of what stadium he wanted to play at and had some ideas of potential sponsors... It also wasn't clear (IIRC) if the club had any connection with the original Dublin Blues who won a few Irish leagues back in the day. Sorry if that all sounds a bit vague, but to be honest I don't think a lot of detail was forthcoming even in quite a long interview!

Fair enough - no offence intended!

Christ, 1990... they had absolutely no idea what was about to happen to ticket prices to watch sport (especially football)...

Another of their tweets provides some answers:

And the club will get fans from Australia through this, which in turn means more attention to and interest in SL over there. I know that signing Joey for 3 games all those years ago made quite a few Aussie fans adopt Wire as their English team! (apologies if someone else has said this by now, I'm only on page 1)

I presumed it would be football-style qualification via the national league each season. Who knows if any of this will ever come to fruition? I hope so, it's an exciting idea. Let's hope the businessmen behind it don't just talk a good game!

I think the idea there is to help support the national leagues because if there's only one place available in each country there should be keen competition to win that place, so it's an incentive to play in and do well in the national leagues.

Eric is gonna be on Chasing Kangeroos soon too...

These are more or less exactly my thoughts. The top 5 seems actually set up to include games that feel pointless and are intended to be repeated later in the series. With a top 6 as TC describes above, you reward the top 2 sides with a home game to get into the GF, the next two have to win a home game and then an away game to get there, and the 5th and 6th have to win two away games to get there. Seems spot on to me.

You raise some interesting questions there: What counts as a success? If they have 10 CAN players in year one, is it a success if there are 2 or 3 still in or around the team after second season in (hopefully) the Championship? If a few of the other 7 or 8 are then playing with other L1 clubs is that a success? (difficult with the visas situation unless they also have British heritage, like Quinn Ngwarti and the fact that the exception for N. American players only applies to the N. American clubs, so those players count as overseas at other clubs). If this did happen, it is a gain for the game, the opening of a new player pool, or the beginnings of doing so.

I see this as a compromise - as we've seen before with various combinations of elevation into SL and protection from relegation for Catalans, London and other, briefer-lasting expansion teams in our promotion/relegation system. It wouldn't be perfect, but i think it could work. The road we've gone down with Toulouse and all the N. Am teams is that they have to win promotion on the field. As a British sports fan, I agree with that and think it is working. The teams have to prove themselves worthy on the field, and the clubs get a few years to hone their working before hitting SL. As more and more of these overseas teams hit SL, I think we will need to expand SL. I mean, otherwise it isn't expansion of the league, it's replacing historic English teams with shiny new foreign ones, whereas what expansionists want to see is a combination of the two - so let's keep a core of historic English teams and add the exotic overseas ones on top. As SL expands with additional overseas teams that have won their way up on the field, I think it then makes sense to look at how you enable those new clubs to succeed in business and help grow revenue for SL and lay roots that will hopefully eventually lead to some development on the ground AND how you help the traditional clubs succeed too. You do that by looking at awarding franchised places to those overseas teams that have made it into SL for a period of say 3 or 5 years. But the key bit (and the bit that responds to your natural feeling of unfairness at having only some teams not subject to jeopardy) is that you have to have those franchises subject to review at the end of the period. And - unlike when SL was franchised - that review has to have teeth. If they are not up to scratch on (and off) the pitch by the end (or by near the end) of the period, then the franchise will not be renewed. This will only work if it does not appear to be a stitch-up like it did when SL was franchised. Meanwhile, you keep the base of English clubs happy and healthy by guaranteeing they have 10 or so places in SL AND avoid the stifling of the lower leagues we had last time by continuing promotion and relegation for those domestic clubs. This also keeps the excitement of PR and our British sporting sensibilities alive. I agree there is a certain amount of "sticking in the craw" at the idea that not all clubs can be relegated, but it is a compromise solution. As I say, it's not perfect (what system is?), but I think it could work.

The trouble with any proposed Cumbrian merger (or even joint venture with the clubs involved still playing lower down) is that no-one from Cumbria ever seems to support the idea. Which makes it a bit of a non-starter. And as a fan of one of the (numerous) clubs that was supposed to merge back in '95 I understand why they feel that way.

Maybe they've updated that article since you posted the link... but it specifically does not say that they are abandoning their league 1 plans. It just says they won't be applying to join for next year, but basically all options are on the table after that, including that they are involved in a working group for a European club comp.

Or he just doesn't think Ottawa can stretch its brand and/or resources that far...

Yes, exactly, I think something along those lines is prob closest to the truth (hence also why we heard several times that "Chase is going to arrive this week"... and then he didn't)