Can the RFL still govern Rugby League

[Martyn Sadler]

In my column in this week's League Express I asked this question.

This is an updated version of that column.

[Mr Plow]

Yes but years of poor leadership, bad decisions and mismanagement have lead to the situation we have now where the SL have decided it would be better if they govern themselves. 

 

[DoubleD]

25 minutes ago, Martyn Sadler said:

In my column in this week's League Express I asked this question.

This is an updated version of that column.

Not often I agree with you Martyn, but I’m in full agreement on this. It’s rather concerning, there’s no vision or leadership 

[Oxford]

Let's talk leadership ....

Our feelings are all too often that we think it's missing when either something happens to be what we disagree with or where we can't see what's actually happening,

 

Let's talk vision ....

The way we see the vision of the RFL depends on much the same kind of field dependent view because we are not told what it is we tend to believe there isn't one, when we are told and we don't agree we look at everything through the same viewer.

 

SL had to have a separate vision for quite a few reasons, some of which were that the RFL wasn't doing the marketing and was very unlikely to appoint the quality of person to take the game forward.

 

The fact is if SL is done right then the game will prosper if it isn't then, at best we'll stay as we are right now.

And if the Bulls were in SL right now their voice would be a very different one as it would for anyone else.

 

[Damien]

I completely agree Martyn and to be honest your article seems like a merging together of many posts and views on here. It is certainly the consensus view in Rugby League at the moment but the question is how do we get the change that the game so desperately needs?

[sweaty craiq]

Can the clubs afford an overpaid underproducing board of Directors, taking the equivalent of 50% Champ funding

[paulwalker71]

Hard to disagree with anything in that piece, Martyn. 

[bbfaz]

My concern at this point isn't what they've been doing, Martin, it's what should they be doing?  If we can't find solutions, we're part of the problem rather than part of the solution.

[TheLegendOfTexEvans]

5 hours ago, Damien said:

I completely agree Martyn and to be honest your article seems like a merging together of many posts and views on here. It is certainly the consensus view in Rugby League at the moment but the question is how do we get the change that the game so desperately needs?

I think we need to dissolve leadership too much power in too few places.

Super League may need to govern Super League.

But I also think the lower leagues, amateur and international game all need to be deattached from the RFL.

Having Nigel Woods at the RLIF is not good for the game.

[Odsal Outlaw]

7 hours ago, Martyn Sadler said:

In my column in this week's League Express I asked this question.

This is an updated version of that column.

A good article. This is the type of journalism that should start to be given a more regular and greater airing.  Starting to challenge the leadership of the game and question what they bring to it.  More please!

[Oliver Clothesoff]

My Grandfather, a man who was at that Challenge Cup Final that saw the biggest crowd ever, amongst many, many other Rugby League events, would say that “Rugby League is the greatest sport in the world but it’s governed by idiots”. I never really got what he meant. It was probably the propensity of youth but he was totally correct. 

We have a fantastic product but we’re led by fools and we’ve been led by fools for too many years which has ultimately ended in this mini-breakaway. 

[17 stone giant]

43 minutes ago, Oliver Clothesoff said:

My Grandfather, a man who was at that Challenge Cup Final that saw the biggest crowd ever, amongst many, many other Rugby League events, would say that “Rugby League is the greatest sport in the world but it’s governed by idiots”.

Or Lions led by donkeys, in the case of next years tour.

[The Future is League]

8 hours ago, DoubleD said:

Not often I agree with you Martyn, but I’m in full agreement on this. It’s rather concerning, there’s no vision or leadership 

For some time as well.

We appear most of the time to be like a rudderless ship

[M j M]

Saying the sport's administrators should have a higher profile is just fundamentally wrong IMO - and totally goes against the Richard Lewis approach to running things when he specifically cited this as a peculiarity of Rugby League dating back to the Lindsay days.

The sport needs higher profile clubs and higher profile players not higher profile administrators.

[17 stone giant]

1 hour ago, M j M said:

Saying the sport's administrators should have a higher profile is just fundamentally wrong IMO - and totally goes against the Richard Lewis approach to running things when he specifically cited this as a peculiarity of Rugby League dating back to the Lindsay days.

The sport needs higher profile clubs and higher profile players not higher profile administrators.

When things are going well and people are happy, nobody really cares who is in charge of what. It's only when things aren't that great that people start to look at who is in charge. If I think of some of the other sports that I like, generally speaking I don't really have much idea of who is in charge. For example, I'd struggle to name who is in charge of the FA or RFU or England cricket right now. Rugby league always seems to have a lot of uncertainty and I think that's why people are focused so much on who is in charge - everyone is waiting to see what they are going to do, whereas in other sports everything is pretty much mapped out and just ticks over without too many changes.

[redjonn]

I don't have a clue who the administrators of other sports are. Whether their the one's with the highest profile or those that don't have such a profile. I still follow what happens results and playing wise in those sports.

Yes as noted above the governance structure/organisational aspects of the sport need addressing. This is a CEO's job to get the organisation right and ensure the right senior leaders of each role/department are appointed within constraints of budgets.

I don't expect the CEO to be all over the media with the exception as to when some major high profile failure occurs and hence the need to take ownership at correcting and sorting such high profile failure. That being less likely if he has the right organisation capabilities - a key aspect of any CEO role.

 

[bbfaz]

I think people look at boxing and MMA promoters and feel that their attitude and persona enhances the sport, thus their discussions with the Hearns.

[Padge]

18 hours ago, M j M said:

Saying the sport's administrators should have a higher profile is just fundamentally wrong IMO - and totally goes against the Richard Lewis approach to running things when he specifically cited this as a peculiarity of Rugby League dating back to the Lindsay days.

The sport needs higher profile clubs and higher profile players not higher profile administrators.

I sort of agree, but, high profile administrators get listened to and searched out by the media. If we had a high profile sport then nobody should have a clue who administrates it.

Lewis inherited a relatively high profile sport and so had to do little to up the profile and could sit back and move the game on, which he did. Then Fat Ropps took over and sent the game backwards 30 years.

[Odsal Outlaw]

I don’t think there’s is neccessarily a need for those running the sport to be visible if it is clear they are doing a good job and the sport is well run.  However, when their is a clear lack of competence and direction it is right that they should come under the spotlight and be challenged. 

[Scubby]

On 12/1/2018 at 4:21 PM, Martyn Sadler said:

In my column in this week's League Express I asked this question.

This is an updated version of that column.

Would have been nice to have seen this type of article written when the game was in limbo without a CEO. Rimmer was never up to the job and the fact he was able to ascend to CEO when the job was thrown open to wider applicants speaks volumes about the game's administration.

[RayCee]

Where does the revenue the RFL receives come from?

[Dave T]

I must admit it seems a bit wishy washy. What exactly are you asking?

To ask what individual board members bring is an odd question, I'm not sure how that can be answered any more than looking at their profile on the RFL website.

I agree with others that profile of the leadership team ain't essential.

I think the questions needs to be around the strategy document, it is no good saying we don't know what they are doing about participation when their strategy doc and annual reports give high level details. They share high level stuff, but challenging them on specifics like missed targets around sellouts etc. Is more relevant than just saying 'We don't know what you do.

I also think the rules thing is a bit odd, they are relatively minor and it was explained on backchat that the RFL are comfortable with SL adopting their own minor variations. Whether the Championship clubs play to those rules will be addressed, I'm not sure it's too much of an issue that we don't know whether we will have draws. There is a while to go.

I'd rather the challenges were more focused rather than these generic quibbles.

 

[Konkrete]

22 hours ago, Oliver Clothesoff said:

My Grandfather, a man who was at that Challenge Cup Final that saw the biggest crowd ever, amongst many, many other Rugby League events, would say that “Rugby League is the greatest sport in the world but it’s governed by idiots”. I never really got what he meant. It was probably the propensity of youth but he was totally correct. 

We have a fantastic product but we’re led by fools and we’ve been led by fools for too many years which has ultimately ended in this mini-breakaway. 

Don’t want to be pedantic here, or derail the thread, but facts are important.  Which game are you referring to?

The highest recordedattendance for a single RL game was c102k at Odsal, and that was for a semi final featuring Warrington and some other team. 

[Smudger06]

19 minutes ago, RayCee said:

Where does the revenue the RFL receives come from?

£2,500,000 from gate receipts of Challenge Cup Final & Home England Internationals. 

£10,000,000 FROM Sky & BBC for Broadcast of Challenge Cup Games, home England Internationals and RFL Championship. 

£1,200,000 FROM sponsorship (Companies on all match officials Shirts including Super League games Specsavers / Dacia, companies on England team shirts, Challenge Cup Sponsor (recently Ladbrokes) Championship & League 1 Sponsor- Betfred.) 

£3,000,000 government funding towards community game / grassroots 

£5,500,000 from player fines, club fines, selling England shirts, payments from other national governing bodies or promoters for England national team agreed fee when playing abroad and a payment from SLE for governance costs such as match officials, disciplinary, anti doping etc. 

= £22.2m in total. 

 

[Scubby]

37 minutes ago, Konkrete said:

Don’t want to be pedantic here, or derail the thread, but facts are important.  Which game are you referring to?

The highest recordedattendance for a single RL game was c102k at Odsal, and that was for a semi final featuring Warrington and some other team. 

Wasn't it a Challenge Cup Replay Warrington v Halifax?