IMG’S provisional grading scores have been given to clubs, 12 months before the real thing ahead of the 2025 season.
Some of those losers from the grades are Keighley Cougars – who sit 30th out of 36 professional teams – and Featherstone Rovers – who would miss out on a Super League spot by over two points.
Both clubs released statements outlining their opposition to the grades, with Keighley “insulted” and Featherstone “troubled” by the revelation.
However, RFL chief executive Tony Sutton has reacted to the likes of Featherstone and Keighley’s opposition to the gradings.
“We have spent a lot of this year engaging with clubs at a lot of different levels, all of us have taken it upon ourselves to get out on the patch and talk people through it,” Sutton said.
“Our aim throughout all of this is that clubs understand this and the framework in front of them and what the game voted for.
“We have engaged clubs significantly in order to ensure they understood as much as they wanted to.”
Will clubs publish the breakdown of their own points?
“We have a data dashboard for clubs to view their own data and scoring and that will be updated for the announcements this morning. The next one will be to use it as a modelling tool, to increase their outputs or resources.
“Clubs have got their own level of detail and can choose whether or not they will publish, I think it will be positive if they do because I believe in transparency.
“This shows what clubs need to do to reach the higher level. The number of Grade A clubs shows how well the top clubs can perform and that along with the grading score model can show others how to be a top Grade A club.
“There are seven and perhaps more than what we thought at first.”
Much has been made of the Super League competition, with calls for it to rebranded next season taking into consideration.
However, managing director of RL Commercial, Rhodri Jones, has revealed that a rebrand will not be considered for 2024.
“It’s not something we will look at doing in 2024. One, the length of time to finalise the broadcast deal didn’t feel like we could rename the competition through those negotiations and also we are tied in with a sponsor for Super League in the next three years,” Jones said.
“We haven’t taken it off the table but it might take it off the table for a bit longer.”
Recently, there has also been a number of clubs deciding not to publish attendances at home games.
Though Jones is keen for transparency, the governing body does have access to all spectator counts no matter what.
“Transparency, we have other ways of accessing attendances without them needing to be publicly announced i.e the ground safety officer’s reports where most of the detail comes from.
“Releasing the attendance numbers is the clubs’ call and their prerogative, we still get the data back.”
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