Yes the transition would be problematic. But you could introduce a rule to allow say five full-time players per squad (a variation on marquee players like we have now) with a salary cap for the whole squad.DaveO wrote: ↑Sun Aug 29, 2021 3:19 pm Going back to semi pro would be fraught with problems. What are you going to do? Ban clubs from paying players enough for them to be full time? That would be the ultimate irony with RL banning such payments to players in a similar way to how RU was supposedly amateur.
It would be back to none-jobs being given to players by the owners company and brown envelopes passed under the table.
The solution isn’t going semi pro but the sport finally admitting two things. 1) There isn’t enough money to fund more than about 12 or 14 full time teams and 2) promotion and relegation between a full time league and a semi pro one does not and never has worked. Promotion and relegation needs to end. It works well in Australia with no P&R.
The way the progressives would like RL to go is a 12 team super league with 2 teams from France, 2 from North America, 2 from London/Wales, leaving just six franchises for the traditional M62 corridor clubs. The rest can just go and rot.
Somewhere along the road we have cut adrift clubs with potential support bases similar in size to the remaining super league clubs: Oldham, Halifax, Bradford, Widnes, Featherstone, Workington, Barrow to name just a few. Reverting to part time creates a way back for some of these, although some will never recover their former status.
If not this, then the only viable solution for a full-time sport would be merger with rugby union. Not a bad idea in my opinion, but nobody seems to be considering it.