belgianxiii wrote:Not now and no. Nz do fine with only one club in the NRL, obviously the situation is different but it is possible - the French national side has the benefit of being drawn from one club with players who know each other well (as opposed to Saints and Leeds players who refuse to pass to each other). TO should be in the Championship for 3-6 years at least. This gives a good progression path for Catalan academy players and will help develop the French player pool. Once TO can field a top Championship side with an LER squad as well, then they may be ready for SL - but at this point Catalans will have had to develop to having only 4 etrangers and TO will need a number of promising Championship players.
As for the next Championship club, I think the best option would be to do it properly and select a team like Pia or FCL who would not aim to progress to the SL. For this, though, those clubs would need to be able to extend their player pool to ~ 50 and field a team in both the LER and Championship.
For Paris or Marseille they would need to make it to the LER top competition, stay there and make the (new) play-offs - i.e. top 5. THEN maybe they could try one of the Championship comps (it would be great if Championship 1 improved to the point where they could compete with a Foreign club - not holding my breath though) and then look to SL.
Personally I think that by the time Paris would be ready for SL it will probably be time for a French SL.
yes and we saw how good the french national side was in the wC
Joined: Aug 07 2007 Posts: 792 Location: Wood Green
belgianxiii wrote:Not now and no. Nz do fine with only one club in the NRL, obviously the situation is different but it is possible - the French national side has the benefit of being drawn from one club with players who know each other well (as opposed to Saints and Leeds players who refuse to pass to each other). TO should be in the Championship for 3-6 years at least. This gives a good progression path for Catalan academy players and will help develop the French player pool. Once TO can field a top Championship side with an LER squad as well, then they may be ready for SL - but at this point Catalans will have had to develop to having only 4 etrangers and TO will need a number of promising Championship players.
As for the next Championship club, I think the best option would be to do it properly and select a team like Pia or FCL who would not aim to progress to the SL. For this, though, those clubs would need to be able to extend their player pool to ~ 50 and field a team in both the LER and Championship.
For Paris or Marseille they would need to make it to the LER top competition, stay there and make the (new) play-offs - i.e. top 5. THEN maybe they could try one of the Championship comps (it would be great if Championship 1 improved to the point where they could compete with a Foreign club - not holding my breath though) and then look to SL.
Personally I think that by the time Paris would be ready for SL it will probably be time for a French SL.
This misses the point of the exercise completely. The reason TO is in the Championship is precisely to prepare them for SL. The RFL has no interest in promoting to the Championship a French club like Pia or FCL which has no chance of ever being a Super League club.
The RFL is not uninterested in Paris becoming a Championship and later a SL club. The only issue for the RFL and the FFRXIII is how to make such a club viable, from a financial, fan and player base foundation. Obviously Paris is the most prestigious and potentially lucrative name in France. That is the reason why M. Larrat is interested in developing the game there. (Whether he has the resources and acumen to make it work is another matter).
Joined: Aug 07 2007 Posts: 792 Location: Wood Green
JonM wrote:One of the things about France is that it's not a country of big cities - Marseille (second city by some distance ahead of Lyon) has about the same population as Leeds or Sheffield.
If you look at the french rugby union's top 14 competition (rich and able to buy in players from all over the world), most of the teams are based in places which would be considered as small towns if they were in superleague - smaller than Bridgend or Cas.
The idea of a future Paris club using Stade Francais's home ground and thus minimising costs shows a lack of understanding of how French sport normally operates. It's a publically owned multi-use facility with a running track round it, with grass and trees at one end. Gateshead Stadium or Don Valley would be British equivalents. If they have a big game, they just play at one of the other available stadiums - including Charlety, where PSG started off superleague and recently the Stade de France. The mayor of Paris is a prominent supporter of the club and the city council provide a large amount of money and help.
Difference with the UK is that rather than paying rent to the council use the ground, local councils will typically be the main funder of local sports clubs. If you're going to pick spots on the map to place a team in France, the key factor is to find public money to pay for it - Cannes/Nice, Bordeaux, Nimes or any other large Southern City without a currently succesful rugby XV team would make just as much sense as Lyon.
The French RU clubs exist from the largesse of wealthy individual sponsors, as well as the government and corporations. These clubs are playthings of their benefactors, just as Chelsea is for Mr Abramovich. The classic example is Toulouges , where Sonny Bill has gone. Rugby league cannot copy that model, because it is still too weak a sport. Such a model will only ever eventuate if and when rugby league ever becomes popular and fashionable among the well to do in France.
Until rugby league becomes a major French pastime -- bigger than handball -- it needs to have another business model. It will have to depend on a combination of public and corporate backing. This can only be big enough to sustain a club in Super League if the city has a large tax base and a large, prosperous business community. Rugby league is struggling financially in Perpignan (pop. 100,000) in competition with RU because there is only a small business community there, no large corporations such as exist in Toulouse. Les Catalans survives because it draws on the broader Catalan community in Languedoc-Roussillon --- and barely at that. This means that Paris, Toulouse, Lyon and Marseille are the places the FFRXIII will be looking to develop, not large towns.
The need to build new fans support and junior recruitment structures also argues for larger cities. The small towns that RU are based in, are (except for Paris and Toulouse) entrenched in their sporting ways. There is no room for rugby league in small RU towns, just as there is no room for rugby union in Lezignan or Pia. Only large cities with significant, often unemployed, young immigrant populations can provide the new players to supply a new sport. And only the immigrant cities willl have the surplus fans to follow the boys to the games.
Alice's Phallus wrote:This misses the point of the exercise completely. The reason TO is in the Championship is precisely to prepare them for SL. The RFL has no interest in promoting to the Championship a French club like Pia or FCL which has no chance of ever being a Super League club.
In your opinion. In my opinion TO is there as our feeder club, to act as a bridge for LER players to cross to get to SL. This will also have some benefit for the national side.
Alice's Phallus wrote:...That is the reason why M. Larrat is interested in developing the game there...
The same genius who picked Bobbie G. as the French coach? Ho hum.
sang-et-or.net, home of the Bobbie Goulding appreciation society.
dally messenger wrote:yes and we saw how good the french national side was in the wC
Crap coach and a need to fill squad places with experienced players from the lower leagues. Currently a French squad could be selected purely from the Catalan side, with a gap for a fly-half and an injury question over a wing and centre - that can be resolved one way or another. No, not a world beating squad but not bad for 3 years' work.
I think it would be crazy to hope that France would be a proper top 4 national side without their playing any real matches against proper opposition. 2011 4N will be the time to get an idea of their status.
sang-et-or.net, home of the Bobbie Goulding appreciation society.
Joined: Aug 07 2007 Posts: 792 Location: Wood Green
belgianxiii wrote:In your opinion. In my opinion TO is there as our feeder club, to act as a bridge for LER players to cross to get to SL. This will also have some benefit for the national side..
That is not what Richard Lewis has indicated, and it is he who is behind the France - SL connection. He said long ago, at the time of the announcement of the move to a franchise system, that he wants French clubs in SL. That is what Carlos Zalduendo and Bernard Guasch think the plan is, not the idea that you have cooked up. Talk to them, as I do, and they will tell you that your opinion of the reason for the French Championship club is completely wrong.
belgianxiii wrote: The same genius who picked Bobbie G. as the French coach? Ho hum.
The Goulding appointment shows that Larrat has little idea about rugby league coaching. It doesn't follow that therefore he knows nothing about French business or culture. He is after all a successful lawyer in Toulouse.
Wayne Bennett is one of the great coaches of all time. It doesn't follow that he knows much about the business side of rugby league...he may do, but there is no necessary connection.
Understanding the game, and understanding the business are two separate skills.
belgianxiii wrote:Crap coach and a need to fill squad places with experienced players from the lower leagues. Currently a French squad could be selected purely from the Catalan side, with a gap for a fly-half and an injury question over a wing and centre - that can be resolved one way or another. No, not a world beating squad but not bad for 3 years' work.
I think it would be crazy to hope that France would be a proper top 4 national side without their playing any real matches against proper opposition. 2011 4N will be the time to get an idea of their status.
sorry but thats just a load of BS.
france doesnt have enough pro players for an international team and needs a 2nd side to do that.
belgianxiii wrote:In your opinion. In my opinion TO is there as our feeder club, to act as a bridge for LER players to cross to get to SL. This will also have some benefit for the national side.
The same genius who picked Bobbie G. as the French coach? Ho hum.
more BS.
toulose are there as a test for SL.
LEs Cats have a limited potential to develop RL in france.
toulose has a big population and is a wealthy city so its needed to give RL critical mass in france.
also have a side which is not associated with the catalans thing could be good as well.
ive got no doubt in SL toulose would get bigger crowds than les cats.
the game could do with a big city club in france
les cats have done really well, but they cant really get that much bigger
Whatever our theories as to what TO is doing in the UK they are just that. Whatever reasons the RFL have had for introducing TO to the Championship what they will look to get out of it will change depending on their performance - we have seen that the RFL is happy to change their plans to suit the circumstances.
A second French club in SL would help, but I don't think it is what is needed now: to have some effect we would need enough players to fill in the second SL squad. TO would not improve the national squad unless they had players that could compete with Catalan players. Better having a mostly french squad at Catalans competing with Leeds/Saints and exposing those players to a higher level of Rugby than two French clubs scrapping it out with Huddersfield and Wakey.
sang-et-or.net, home of the Bobbie Goulding appreciation society.
Joined: Oct 10 2007 Posts: 706 Location: Cambridge
Alice's Phallus wrote:The French RU clubs exist from the largesse of wealthy individual sponsors, as well as the government and corporations. These clubs are playthings of their benefactors, just as Chelsea is for Mr Abramovich. The classic example is Toulouges , where Sonny Bill has gone.
Toulon, not Toulouges - the latter is a small village near Perpignan which has an amateur RL team.
It's not really true, though.
Only Toulon & Stade Francais are where they are because of wealthy benefactors. British SL has a much higher number of rich man's playthings, in fact.
Even for those two clubs, there is significant public funding - of the order of 2 million euro from the Paris Mairie for Stade last year (still less than PSG football got which is a source of current political arguing). When Toulon got promoted, their funding from local councils went from 1.8 to 2.6 million euros - they get cash from the town mairie, the departement and the regional government. In other words, their guaranteed annual budget from taxpayer handouts is on a par with some SL clubs, before they have taken a cent in ticket sales, corporate sponsorship, tv rights, merchandising etc.
Maybe next time you talk to Carlos, you can ask him whether TO get more money from local government or "large companys"?
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