Don't confuse him/her any more than he/she already is.

How do you know that?

That font of all knowledge Mystic Mick is tweeting that these changes have been "...been unanimously rejected by the Championship and League One chairmen."

Which is interesting. Maybe this was the SL sweetner before taking the mid8's out back and sending them to rugby league heaven.

Or maybe not. Who knows really? It really is a shambles.

That would make sense. SL clubs come up with a plan to get what they want and try to get some non SL clubs on board by offering them the carrot of promotion.

If that is the case I'm glad the non-SL clubs saw through it and blew it back.

The SL clubs are also assuming that even if they got a majority that Sky would agree to their proposal. They might throw it back at them. The deal doesn’t run out until 2021. It’s a bit like Brexit in that there are lots of vehemently held opinions that are totally opposed and unlikely to ever be a compromise that pleases everyone.

Should also be noted that nothing 'official' has come out but somehow a publication known for its anti '8s' views has gained access to the proposals. Strikes me as a leak by someone trying to influence things, and not necessarily for the good of all the game. As I've said there's no meat at all on anything in the public domain so how anyone could decide whether it's a good proposal or not based on that information is beyond me.

The worry for me is if the greedy SL chairmen don't get their way they may breakaway and make it a closed shop like NRL and cut the rest adrift to fend for themselves.

That would certainly be good for Salford, Widnes and HKR - so long as it's done PDQ

"Unanimously"?
Nah, can't really believe that, the clubs couldn't agree 'unanimously' on the Christmas card list, let alone something important.

Yeah, good point. I can't imagine Swinton, who currently reside second bottom in the Championship voting for it....

Or the club that are going to finish second in League 1...

Or clubs say 3 to 8 in champ one as surely there chances of promotion have improved?

Yeah, about that.....

Typical rfl changing the format to help keep one of Swinton or Rochdale up.... rfl favs

Prize money renamed surprize money then!

Well Mick tweeted earlier that the RFL EGM vote on the new structure is due to take place on the 14th Sept. So I guess we'll see what's what by the end of September then.

I’ve seen/heard a good few interviews recently where L1 clubs seem to be in favour of the proposed change

I think the issue is less about the L1 to Championship side of things. The big gap that no-one seems to be bringing up is what happens to P&R for Championship and SL if the Middle 8's are removed.

From what I understand it’s 12th down, 1&2 from champ play off in the million pound game for promotion. This at least would guarantee P&R each year. When it comes to a vote the 12 Superleague clubs get 2 votes, and everyone else gets one, with a simple majority needed to pass the vote. So given that Leeds will not vote for the change, the remaining 11 SL clubs plus 3 others would secure change. Sounds very likely to pass on that basis.

Interesting piece written by Andrew Chalmers on the T & A website today, on the subject of self interest of larger rugby (union) clubs www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/s ... our-sport/

Interesting piece written by Andrew Chalmers on the T & A website today, on the subject of self interest of larger rugby (union) clubs www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/s ... our-sport/

The votes of Toronto, Toulouse & Widnes are key.
If the proposal goes through, it makes next years SL clubs more secure and next years Championship clubs would have a more difficult path to promotion.
Self interest and crystal ball gazing will be utilised...

Toronto & Toulouse don’t actually get a vote as they are not full members. This goes some way to explaining why the superleague clubs don’t want them in superleague, as it would dilute their collective voting power to a point where the lower divisions have a clear majority. There are 7 additional votes too given to community organisations apparently, no idea how they’ll vote.

I agree that the change would make superleague clubs more secure, but I don’t entirely agree that it makes promotion harder. From what I’ve seen relegation is automatic, and one of the top 2 from champ will be promoted, through a one match playoff, without having to beat any SL clubs. It guarantees promotion, whereas there is no such guarantee now. Assuming there are no strings attached off course...

I can never really see where people who are in favour of the middle 8s as a way of promotion are coming from. I always thought it was a way of offering championship clubs promotion - and thus keeping them quiet - whilst being completely unrealistic.

It's taken a really special effort from Widnes to be so bad that a championship club will actually get promoted this year. All this against the 100% guaranteed route of promotion that the new proposal (that nobody actually really seems to know the details of) offers.

That is true enough, but that would leave the 'new' SL club as the whipping boy. It's likely to be very similar to the old, and discredited at the time, yo-yo system where the same, two or maybe three clubs, take turns to go up and down every year, with each promoted club, essentially, taking on the players from the relegated one. Any new club in SL needs security for at least three season to build and become really competitive, imo. This promotion element has a bit of 'here we go round the mulberry bush' about it.

What would be next? We don't like the yo-yo so we'll go back to licensing? I think that is essentially what the SL clubs want anyway with the P&R element only being suggested a sop to gain votes from the lower leagues.