Sammo

The Sun article seems to have been taken down - does anyone have a copy?

What sport has made a success of professional expansion into an area where there isn’t at least a solid amateur/community scene? I can’t think of any. The reality for me is that if you want semi pro RL to grow, the clubs have to have to be in areas where the sport has a sustained presence, at the minimum. Expansion starts before the founding of a L1 club, probably a decade before, with centrally funded community officers. Of course, this requires cash. If I was to want to try this on a shoestring, I would focus on the region between the ‘heartlands’ and Birmingham - Derby, Nottingham, Stoke, Lincoln, Leicester. Not so far that community officers can’t travel from the heartlands, and that community clubs aren’t travelling for hours for games. If the game can build upon the presence that there is in these areas already (Elks, Outlaws), then this is where I feel sustainable semi pro success could be found. None of this answers the question of ££££ though!

Is there a maximum number of loan or DR players in a matchday squad?

Fantastic for the club to get a bit of stability. My only concern is what happens when the real estate deals are ‘done’? Do Salford find themselves in a situation where they have an owner that has extracted all of the value they can and isn’t interested in subsidising the club any longer? Hopefully not an issue in the short term though

Not sure where you’re booking your flights from - can get economy Sydney to Paris return for around £1100 on Etihad, Emirates, arriving 6th Oct departing 30th

What is the domestic competition situation in Malta?

According to this - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_requirements_for_Turkish_citizens Serbia, Montenegro, and Albania do not require visas for Turkish citizens. Could these not be options? There is a member on here who is heavily involved in Montenegrin RL (Ian Gibbs??). I would reach out to him. There is also Lebanon, which apparently grants a free visa on arrival.

Who was the forfeit? Don’t recognise the badge

For context, an MLR franchise would cost you around USD10m, and look how they are struggling. This proposal is naive at best.

I’m probably out of the loop here, but how is this situation Sale’s fault?

I recall that the domestic competition was struggling to get going again post COVID - what is the situation now?

Link doesn’t work… Edit: tried again this morning and has been fixed

Has anyone tried to go through and estimate how many points each club would get? I know these would be pure guesstimates, but interested in who the winners/losers are, and whether this is going to change anything at all in the short term

It isn’t a league, just a set of fixtures.

Are the Wolfpack actually professional in any way now?

Would be interested to hear what others think about whether twitter posts like this should be in Dutch? To me having them all in English screams ‘niche sport for foreigners’. It would be good to see Dutch and English if space allowed

Yes, they definitely played a union match a few weeks ago

Was in Tirana a couple of months ago - a great place with a fascinating (but sad) history. And super cheap!

Interested in how the Albania side will turn out - is there still just the one club?

I checked out of this topic at about page 35 - has anything significant happened or are we still having the same circular arguments?

Is there a timeline for when we will find out the final gradings?

I’m interested in the make-up of the Eagles squad. How many are local (Scottish) ‘league first’ players? Or are most union and league players, or league players from the traditional heartlands? I’d imagine it is a mix, but would be interesting to have a rough breakdown

Do they own it? I always assumed it was the football club or council that did. In fact looks to me like the council do - https://www.llanellitowncouncil.gov.uk/index.php?id=112

‘Aiming’ and ‘will’ suggests none of this has happened yet? Cutting it fine…

Have seen Derby suggested a few times but don’t think it would work - there isn’t a suitable facility for a team attracting ~5k people. If I was looking at the East Midlands I’d go with Nottingham - Lady Bay would be ideal to start and could move up to the Notts County stadium if successful. I went to university in Norwich and think there suffers from the same issue - I don’t know of any facilities other than the Canaries ground