My letter : Sat Jul 30, 2011 10:10 pm
My letter to the Courier. Have also sent a similar one to Red Hall.-----------------------
The Oxford Dictionary definition for Sport is: an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment. This then is surely where the RFL has gone wrong and why Fax can quite rightly feel hard done by with the Rugby League’s decision not to award them a franchise for Super League.
It is true in professional sport that there has to be a minimum criteria for competitions. Spectator facilities should be the main focus because at the end of the day, the sport exists at a professional level to entertain those who pay to attend matches. Whilst we do live in a crazy world of Health & Safety gone mad, supporters should be able to watch their favourite sport in both safe and comfortable surroundings.
There does also need to be a degree of financial fair play and sensible financial management. Far too often clubs take risks; gambling their long term stability on short term success. When failure is the result the consequences are quite often disastrous and it is usually the supporters who suffer the greatest.
What exists in rugby league however is much greater than just ensuring a fair sport exists for the paying public. It isn’t about rewarding successful teams and punishing those that aren’t which is why you can’t blame those at Fax for being slightly paranoid about the whole process. There is nothing transparent about the method used in finding the ‘chosen ones’ to participate in the pinnacle of the sport.
Fax quite rightly felt they had a chance. They had ticked all the boxes and were supposedly going to be judged fairly alongside the other applicants on issues such as commercial and marketing, media and community. But surely this is where the downfall comes? If the club is financially stable and has a stadium up to standard, then shouldn’t the next criteria be about what happens on the turf – also know as promotion and relegation?
Teams that are most successful are declared champions, and, if a higher league exists, rewarded with promotion, whilst those least successful are punished by relegation. There can be nothing more transparent than this simple method and takes everything back to the core of the sport rather than to the core of the business.
It is easy to criticise other clubs’ bids and HRLFC’s Chairman Michael Steele, has been particularly scathing about the bid of Wakefield Wildcats in comparison to that of his own club. It is the whole process however which should be criticised and deemed not fit for purpose because they have failed to realise that the competition should take place on the field of play, rather than in the board rooms and commercial departments of the clubs.
Development of what is an entertaining sport will only happen when it is a credible, transparent and fair. Right now it is the absolute opposite. The man at the helm of the RFL is the former CEO of Fax whose legacy was the Blue Sox name. His legacy for the game as a whole however surpasses the embarrassment caused for Fax fans and is one which he should quite rightly be ashamed of.
