The Rugby Football League has urged Harlequins to make more effort to attract crowds to the Twickenham Stoop.
Attendance figures will be one of the criteria used to determine clubs' suitability for the next round of Super League licences to be awarded in 2011.
Harlequins played to average home gates of just under 3,500 in 2009 and the RFL feels those figures are disappointing... (continues, click link)
But this got me:
"They have got a good team on the field and I do believe if they get it right off the field there is no reason why they can't get good crowds and be a full paying member of the Super League."
interpret that as either they have special treatment or a blind eye... or they can be like everyone else.
An interesting quote but was that a Nobby'esque turn of phrase or what?
Do clubs actually pay to play SL? I thought they received money from the RFL (from Sky).
Perhaps Quins are receiving a subsidy as well. Celtic are rumoured to receive help.
And of course as far as I am aware our own IL is still the owner despite having no direct involvement in the running of the club anymore. I don't see people queueing up to by him out either.
I think you're looking too deeply at it tbh I read it as they need to justify their position in SL above other clubs basically, I don't think there's more to it than that but I could be wrong, that said I'm sure they do will get certain perks from the RFL but much more than that if the SL clubs aren't aware it would be highly illegal I'd have thought. I think if they were seriously helping Quins and Crusaders they might well have announced this QUins story but they wouldn't have publicly bashed Crusaders because in my opinion it makes RL a laughing stock more than it already is in some circles and makes Crusaders look like an amateurish outfir which is likely to put crowds off.
Gareth Thomas before his first game: "You wanna spend 10 mins getting smashed up by these guys..Big dudes here.."
I would expect it is a bit like some churches. Some have the congregations to survive financially on their own while others falter. Each church puts in 10% of the offering to a central fund. This fund then supports the head office and churches that are not self financing. It would not be for the benifit of the church to close churches where there is not a suitable alternative. Same with RL, while it might be feasable for Leigh to close as the supporters can attend Wigan it would not be feasable to close Quins as there is no suitable alternative in the area. Same with Celtic. However if Celtic relocate to Wrexham they loose that territorial advantage.
Hope that makes sense,
Jim