Wakefield chief executive Michael Carter says he is in favour of ‘Option 1’ in Super League’s return to play proposals.
Clubs met on Thursday to further discuss the three return-to-play options, with a decision expected in the coming weeks.
The three options see the season end in November, December and January. Carter believes a November Grand Final, scheduled for 28 November, would be the correct path to follow.
“I’m in massively in favour of option 1,” he said.
“Two reasons, one, contracts run until the end of November, and by the end of December and January potentially they’ve signed for other clubs. There’s all that difficulty, heading to a Grand Final it probably wouldn’t be too difficult to sign a two-week extension, but it might be a challenge for others.
“Equally, I want to impinge on next season as little as possible. It has to be normal so we can bounce back. If we go into December or January, then you’re looking at a March restart and potentially at the back end.
“In a normal season, I’d have no problem with that, but we’ve got a World Cup at the end of it. I’m massively into England and Shaun Wane and I want to give him every opportunity to win that World Cup, so we’ve got to do as much as we can this year.
“If we can get the issue of promotion and relegation off the table and accept it’s an exhibition season, as it’s so massively compromised, we can fulfil our obligations and get on with 2021.”
Carter also has no issues with an August restart.
“What’s keeping clubs afloat are Sky and furlough,” he added.
“There’s probably not much out of those two items keeping clubs going.
“We’ve got to get back on the field to fulfil the Sky contract, but the minute we come back to training we lose furlough, so there’s a huge balancing act on training and how quickly we kick-start the season.
“I’d bring them back near to the end of July to benefit from furlough as much as possible, then start two weeks into August, with three weeks of a mini pre-season, I think that’s a fair balancing act, although that’s just my opinion.”
