LEIGH LEOPARDS owner Derek Beaumont knows how tough it is to build a stable Super League club.
In three successive promotion years, Leigh have been relegated in their maiden season – something which Beaumont is determined to change in 2023.
On the back of an eager recruitment drive midway through 2022 whilst in the Championship, the Leigh owner believes that promotion and relegation and a form of licensing is the way to go – a concept which new stakeholders IMG look destined to implement for 2025.
Beaumont, the brains behind the Leigh rebrand to ‘Leopards’, referenced just how difficult it is to recruit players with promotion and relegation still present.
“I’m probably one of the best people to ask about this because I’ve experienced coming up to a Grand Final from a Championship standard in 2016, through the Middle 8s system,” Beaumont said on TalkSport.
“And that was actually a better system because you had to actually beat a Super League team and finish above them in a mini-table, which we did.
“We didn’t finish bottom in Super League so we proved it worked but we still got relegated through the play-offs and then in 2020 we got in through the infamous Super League bid, when Toronto came out of the competition.
“I’ve been there, you’re froze and cast in ice. You can’t recruit because you don’t know when you’re going to get relegated or if you’re going to get promoted.
“And you can never come up and stay up, that’s why nobody has ever done it.
“I put my neck on the block in May when everyone was recruiting and that’s when I said we were going to make it. This time we’ve got a very good chance.”
Beaumont believes the move towards franchising/licensing will be better long-term for rugby league.
“In terms of stability, and growing the game and getting better facilities, it’s the right way to be.
“It will make everybody drive the standards to be a Class A club and if we’ve got 20 of them, we’ve got 20 teams in Super League.
“If we’ve only got 12 then we’ve only got 12.”
IMG proposals are set to be given to clubs on March 6 with a ‘dummy-run’ of grading criteria set to be awarded later in the year.
