Must say its pretty sad when one part of the game decides its necessary to get the lawyers involved when dealing with aspects of running the game. This imo is all money that would be better spent getting kids playing the sport rather than making lawyers rich. Here is the link with Barlas rather threatening letter. www.barla.org.uk/News/Details.asp?id=1933 When supposed friends argue like this who needs enemies at Twickers. Comments such below make pretty depressing reading: "BARLA is of the view they have been deliberately misled as to the RFL’s intentions by people at the most senior level within the RFL." "RFL is not the appropriate organisation for governing amateur rugby league as it is primarily a commercial organisation influenced by its commercial partners in particular BSkyB" "RFL has a policy that encourages elitism which is a fundamental concept that BARLA strives to avoid." "BARLA is a relatively young, fringe organisation that has sought to control amateur rugby league but now has an ever decreasing circle of members." *******************************

Must say its pretty sad when one part of the game decides its necessary to get the lawyers involved when dealing with aspects of running the game. This imo is all money that would be better spent getting kids playing the sport rather than making lawyers rich. Here is the link with Barlas rather threatening letter. www.barla.org.uk/News/Details.asp?id=1933 When supposed friends argue like this who needs enemies at Twickers. Comments such below make pretty depressing reading: "BARLA is of the view they have been deliberately misled as to the RFL’s intentions by people at the most senior level within the RFL." "RFL is not the appropriate organisation for governing amateur rugby league as it is primarily a commercial organisation influenced by its commercial partners in particular BSkyB" "RFL has a policy that encourages elitism which is a fundamental concept that BARLA strives to avoid." "BARLA is a relatively young, fringe organisation that has sought to control amateur rugby league but now has an ever decreasing circle of members." *******************************

With good reason, the sooner these dinosaurs get out of power the better.

BARLA are a predominantly negative force on RL as a whole, and even amateur RL, IMO. Their original reason for existance was to preserve the amateur game. Now their reason for existence is to preserve their blazers. The RFL have provided loads of visible support to both amateur club and school RL that I have directly witnessed. BARLA have never provided a sausage. Their rules stifle clubs in the heartlands and exclude clubs outside Lancs/Yorks/Cumbria. They are the only organisation now left which prevents people from playing RL for the sin of having played professionally. Their attempts to force amateur clubs to NOT play in summer competitions would be laughable if they weren't so damaging. The fact that they are now suing their own sport's governing body is sadly predictable. They will stop at nothing to maintain their own status. Small men with small minds seeking small ponds to drown in.



Given that they've been "merged" with the RFL several times now, and yet still keep those sodding blazers, the only option remaining is for the RFL to set up its own amateur directorate and simply invite every amateur club to join, providing the benefits which would come from accessing central funds as an incentive. BARLA may cling on to some traditionalist die-hards, but the majority of clubs have to vote with their feet and join the twenty-first century.

Oh dear, toys out of pram time, and pedantry. How embarrassing.

And if they did that, the majority of clubs would join. Am I right in thinking the Yorkshire Junior Leagues have opted out of Barla, and I know North West Counties have discussed it numerous times. Barla's only interest is the open age game, they think little or nothing of the junior game which relies on the district leagues and hundreds of volenteers who do.

I think if I was BARLA I would be suing the lawyer who wrote that letter.

I think that if i was in BARLA I would have written out my resignation this morning. That is a sadly pittiful attempt at making a moral stand where there is no moral stand to be made.



Oh, and what Roy said......







The plus side I suppose it that if they should actually get to court, it may actually bankrupt BARLA.

Are the BARLA blazers nice though?

The one's I've seen wouldn't look out of place on the chairman of a working man's club in the early 1980's, blue polyester efforts with what looks suspiciously like an iron on badge. Still they probably mean a lot to the old duffers who wear them.

So in a nut shell:



* BARLA were given their powers by the RFL in 1973



* In 2003 BARLA allowed themselves to be annexed by the RFL as the RFL had access via a unified body to greater funding than BARLA



* The RFL now wish to further unify the Professional & Amateur sections via The Community Board in order to provide a better framework for amateur clubs and the game as a whole.



* BARLA are now using selected wording from previous agreements, contracts and correspondence (some as long ago as 1973) to make a case for a kind of [iconstructive disassembling [/i of BARLA by the RFL.



IMO: BARLA officials are still doing what they have been accused of doing for many many years. That is to protect their own authority, maintain the privileged positions of certain BARLA Executives and to cling on to their hold over sections of the amateur game.



They are doing this in the name of the amateur clubs, volunteers and players despite what is now overwhelming evidence that those same people would be better served under the RFL/Community Board and yes BARLA.



BARLA was a good thing when it first came into existence 36 years ago but they seem unable to accept that times have changed. Government policy has and still is changing with regard to funding, grants etc. .



The RFL is no longer the semi amateur body it once was, it is no longer 100% preoccupied with Pro RL and now recognises how vitally important Amateur, Schools, Ladies, University & Armed Forces RL is to the survival and growth of the game.



BARLAs stance on this could be hugely harmful to the future of the game and I believe their responsibility should be to best manage the transition of their obligations and responsibilities to the Community Board. They can now best serve their Members by stepping aside in a dignified manner while ensuring that their Members are properly catered for under the authority of the Community Board.



Sorry for the long winded reply!

Excellently put Roy!



The only problem with the last paragraph is that if we splinter the game by having two amateur bodies the Govt funding becomes very difficult to maximise. Thats the only reason BARLA still have any influence in this matter at all, if this were not the case I'm sure the RFL would have blown BARLA away by now.

But that will happen, I don't see why Barla give up the powers of junior rugby as they have no interest in it. They don't even let junior reps sit in on their meetings anymore.



Having gone through the junior game for the last 5 years, the RFL have done much more than Barla have.

Spot on apart from the above, the only thing BARLAs stance will damage is BARLA itself.

BARLA causing problems that could cause schisms within the sport? never!

The problem with clubs joining the RFL is that with the exception of the useless Yorkshire League all the winter playing leagues are much better competitions to play in than the RLC as the winter leagues offer a full season (again with the exception of the Premier Division of the Yorkshire League) with localised games and clubs split into divisions of the appropriate standard. Whereas the RLC only offers 3-4 months of games with bigger travelling and bigger disparities of playing standard. What the RFL needs to do is try to persuade whole playing leagues to switch to the RFL, without forcing them to switch to summer as they intended to do in the past, as BARLA's problem is they give district leagues (which with the exception of the Hull and Barrow ones serve no function beside silly tinpot cups) more power than district leagues due to a historical anomaly and the district leagues block any chance to solve problems with common sense solutions (the big one being the problem of the Yorkshire League Premier Division, where the district leagues have blocked clubs trying to save themselves in the Pennine League and also blocked plans for a Yorkshire Conference League of the best sides of both).



However, the NCL has withdrawn their BARLA full membership and are considering entirely joining the RFL, which shows things will gradually change. Likewise many junior leagues are switching

Pilots are to be put in place for junior rugby to be played in the sunmer, it's the RFL that are running this along with the district leagues.



In my opinion this is the only way forward, how can a young lad learn to play the game in mud, wind and rain - turn professional at 16 and expect to play in hot sunshine and firm pitches. Things like this has never been considered by BARLA as they of course want the best players to stay in thier comp and play in their much loved open age competition.

Stay clear of people with names like Lupton Fawcett, bound yo be a ra-ra

couldnt agree more. as a club secretary what i'd say is this - i will look to run the club within the structures that best enable my club to be sustained and grow. That's where "sovereignty" lies. what is BARLA offering?



If the RFL bit the bullet and created winter leagues in the heartlands, administered via the excellent rugby league services department, a mass-exodus to those leagues could easily occur.

its shocking when i think about it:this is how the RFL are trying to destroy the sovereignty of BARLA...



[i(a) the obligation on BARLA to ensure that its constitution, laws and rules shall comply with the RFL’s by reason of BARLA’s membership of the RFL;



(b) by the creation of the Community Board to oversee all aspects of amateur rugby league;



(c) by the imposition of the affiliation agreements forming a direct contractual link between amateur clubs and leagues by the RFL and requiring those entities to comply with the RFL’s rules and procedures and to be directly controlled by the RFL.[/i



under a), BARLA can opt out again surely?



b) is just basic common sense, and BARLA sit on that Board...



c) is a decision for the club. not BARLA.



the crux of the BARLA argument seems to be that at point in time X, the RFL agreed with BARLA that it would recognise BARLAs right to run amateur rugby league. I doubt they could prove anything other than the RFL agreeing to BARLA running BARLA...and clubs, leagues, etc., have teh right to be part of that or not.

Utter rubbish and you know it. The reason there's no BARLA leagues outside the heartlands is that, for better or worse, most of the teams from their non-heartland leagues were absorbed into the RLC and the rest were left to fold with the league when it was left with an unviably small number of teams. With no non-heartland leagues then clearly non-heartland teams can't play in BARLA leagues, unless South London Storm fancy playing in the Pennine League? Although having said that Peterlee did play in the Yorkshire League for a few seasons but for whatever reason (travelling?) it was unsustainable. Either way nothing to do with rules and everything to do with simple pragmatics. In fact the BARLA National Youth League this last season had Gateshead, Celtic Crusaders and North London Stags, so 3 from 14 outside Lancashire/Yorkshire/Cumbria isn't bad

I feel a poll coming on

They could start by persuading the NCL and juniors to switch and then try to set up a much needed Yorkshire Conference League of the best teams from the Pennine League, Yorkshire League and Hull League. Then they could try to set up a new Yorkshire League better run. The Pennine and NWC Leagues are well run and would be best to get the existing leagues tgo switch if possible. The Cumberland, Barrow and Hull leagues are too small to risk splitting with rival leagues, but if the rest of the amateur game switched they would

This is what happens when typing late at night. You miss out key words in sentences :



"Their rules stifle clubs in the heartlands and [uthey [/uexclude clubs outside Lancs/Yorks/Cumbria"



I'm not suggesting they have rules excluding expansion areas. But their actions very clearly have that effect.



I can cite a couple of examples of them making life harder for expansion clubs without even having to look anything up :



1) BARLA very clearly attempting to sabotage the GB community Lions by refusing to co-operate with any attempts to include players from outside the heartlands, and by maintaining their own separate GB amateur side in order to screw over any attempt at a unified national performance structure.



2) BARLA issuing threats to sanction northern clubs who played in expansion competitions against clubs from new areas - effectively trying to strangle summer rugby, but with the additional consequence of making it more difficult for expansion competitions to gain critical mass. Like it or not, the spread of RL into new areas is only going to happen in summer. When BARLA oppose summer rugby, they are effectively making the spread of the game more difficult. It's not even like the RFL are saying everyone has to move to summer - they merely suggest clubs should have a choice. BARLA, on the other hand, have actively worked against clubs even having a choice.



Prior to the RLC, there was a London League for several years, playing in winter. The London League sought all sorts of assistance from BARLA, and got absolutely sod-all support in any way. The RFL, on the other hand, have been very supportive since they took over after the move. In fact, BARLA's attitude was so poor that the London League affiliated to the RFL even before the summer conference developed into the place it is now. All you need to know about BARLA's dedication to clubs outside the heartlands is enshrined in the fact that they have a three counties committee. They don't have any committee at all dealing with RL outside Lancs, Cumbria or Yorkshire. That's not just random - it's been that way for years. Where are the BARLA committees for encouraging the spread of the amateur game ? What have they actually done ? Not just in the last five years, but in the last twenty ?



But that's just one point. The great bulk of amateur RL is in the North (some would argue because nobody did anything about changing that until the RFL tried). Yet it is here that BARLA's influence is most malign, particularly through its anachronistic competition structure, and its bureaucratic restrictions over matters such as young player registrations. BARLA's day is done. They just refuse to accept it.

as Roy says, what are BARLA doing to expand the game in even the North? We've been crying out for a Merit League, 2009 we get one, in summer, under the auspices of the RFL administered system...



protect what you've got, in the most narrow minded form is the general attitude at BARLA. at a time when the systems, infrastructures, and for once - funding! - is in place to really make a difference...