He's not suggested removing the funding from Championship clubs. He is saying the current structure (S8's) is detrimental to SL clubs revenues. Other chairmen agree with him and so do I. I am no Lenagan apologist by the way and am regularly slagged off for questioning his approach on various issues and I don't think moving away from the S8's is going to magically change Wigan's financial fortunes on it's own. It is a step in the right direction though and not just for Wigan.

Agreed. You're trying to sell corporate boxes and with almost no notice you might change from playing Wigan and Sts home to Featherstone and Batley. Even if you're guaranteed a place in the Super 8s you won't know your fixtures until the final games are played, affecting how many home games you have, and who they are against.

Who has appointed Leneghan as the 'leader of the pack'?. Why are the clubs allowing one individual to dictate the future of the sport. A chairman that has seen his club go backwards during his ownership tenure. Just seems odd.
The RFL needs step up and appoint a CEO and start giving the sport some direction top to bottom.

Do you really think IL has taken Wigan backwards . The first team has been going through a rough spell in the last 18 months for varrious reasons but overall the club is in better shape than most .

Wigan run a full range of age grade teams thru to under 19's . Field a reserve team (which most dont and should be mandatory IMO). Wigan have had several u19 and reserve games cancelled recently because other clubs cant raise a team that is a sad situation. Sevelal Superleague teams recently have had to loan in championship players just to make up their first team squad.

Wigans academy structure is second to none in the UK and the envy of most if not all

Run 2 womens teams

About to spend £5m on a training facility adjacent to the DW which if i am correct will involve and include comunity access.

Wigan loose money some years and make a profit others (Rogues is the man to confirm / rubish this) but all in all we are in a reasonably healthy state compared to most.

As NK says below Wigan also do a massive amount of unheralded work in several communities (not just Wigan Bourgh). Not being a native i know about some but only a small proportion of what actually goes on.
That mostly is down to the stability IL gives the club

Regards EW

Backwards? You on about Wigan?!

We were in a mess when Lenagan purchased the club, with a lob sided playing group where some were paid fortunes and others peanuts, we had loads of overseas has beens, hardly any youth development, the crowds were about on a par with their current levels (but in his time we’ve averaged a couple of thousand more at times) and we hadn’t won anything for 6 or 7 seasons and hadn’t won a Grand Final for nearly ten years.

Since then we’ve built a club based on home grown talent, seen lads like Sam Tomkins, Williams, Farrell, Charnley, Gildart etc come through the system and as we’ve lost players replaced them from within, all whilst still challenging for honours. We’ve won 3 Grand Finals, appeared in two more, won 3 leaders shields, won two challenge cups, appeared in one other final and won a World Club Challenge. We make some losses but who doesn’t in this current climate (that he’s trying to change) and much of those losses have been due to investment in training and education facilities around the borough that the clubs involved in.

Not bad for a club gone backwards under its owner.

he's going to lose travelling Leeds fans next year on our form !

Lost them last night . But fair play that was more down to Football and playing a top Superleague fixture on a Thursday night (mental)

Not having a dig at Leeds fans

Regards EW

Wow, I read your board regularly and always agree with your posts and find your posts thought out and very knowledgeable. BUT I have to disagree totally here. The reason teams have fielded less have been because of mainly visa issues going to Canada. Clubs can't afford to sign a heap of players just in case they don't pass visa applications. The majority of clubs in the lower levels have fantastic history within the game and people seem keen to just let them just disappear without a trace. Do Lenegan and his cronies think these fans that part with their money putting it into the game are suddenly going to just start supporting another team and spend their hard earned elsewhere? No it will just alienate more rugby league fans into oblivion never to be seen again. As a Bradford fan seeingthe effort championship and league one clubs put into trying to make ends meet is highly commendable. The championship and League one have never been stronger than they are at present and greedy SL chairmen (most of them) are happy to see them all struggle further. Disgusting attitude for mine! Especially considering the money sky give all clubs covers the standard cap. If clubs want to spend over that by having marquee players thats their own prerogative and should be backed by the people allowing them to spend over, not come at a cost to other clubs. I don't like Hetherington but totally agree with his stance here, the middle 8s give championship clubs something meaningful to aim for. All that will happen with one up one down is a return of a lot of meaningless games between clubs that are too good to go down but not good enough to test the top of tree

Yes, kept chanting, but some dead rubber round ball game kept the odd one and a few even ones away. The M62 roadworks again did not help either !

This is the big point. Its lazy of Lenegan and his gang to actually use their business acumen and marketing power to attract more sponsorship etc, in their eyes its just easier to take a bigger piece of the sky money pie. Actually chase the money or put people in charge of the game who are actually good enough to do a job not just milk the game for their own agendas

Exactly, too many meaningless games, brings lower crowds, one-sides scores. The current split keeps things alive and to the wire (no pun/not Warrington) as Leeds are currently finding out !

There's a good argument over whether the money that goes from central funding to the Championship and League 1 clubs delivers a 'return on investment'. It seems that the the cash simply helps these clubs to tread water (at best), doesn't help them to grow and therefore doesn't deliver a return. That's not a good use of what little central funding we have.

It's not as if such funding, for example, is helping to develop elite talent - the last players from the "hotbed" of Cumbria to play for England were Rob Purdham and Ade Gardner. Nor is that going into developing facilities, being invested in modern marketing techniques, or on community development. Essentially, we're using that funding to keep administrators at bay, rather than develop the sport.

In that context, it's probably worth listening to the idea that such funding is better off in the hands of the clubs that (in theory) are most capable of investing it for the greatest return (the top clubs are the biggest developers of elite talent, they generate the most interest, etc). That doesn't mean that I think the lower league clubs should be cut-off, but I think it's fair and right that the people who are generating this funding should expect some degree of return from the people they are giving it to that benefits the sport as a whole.

Where I think Lenaghan is wrong is this idea that, simply by changing the structure, he can deliver this new age of prosperity with bigger sponsorship and TV deals, because IL's track record on this is hardly stellar. A former client of mine was the main shirt sponsor of Wigan for two years, and they couldn't believe how cheap that arrangement was. Wigan's crowds aren't showing growth, they still have occasional disputes with their landlords and there is a sense of arrogance about the whole operation that doesn't sit well (for example, the cancellation of the Widnes fixture, and the statements using the RFL as a lightning rod for their own failure to get on amicably with their landlord).

But above all, I don't believe IL can deliver on his vision simply because the sport, even under his proposed structure, still has the same fundamental problem that currently prevents it from achieving high value TV and sponsorship deals - it's audience. The sport doesn't reach people who advertisers either want to reach, and the people who advertisers find difficult to reach. I can create an advertisement and reach the demographics that this sport reaches for less than £50-per-thousand - 10,000 people in Wigan would cost me about £500, so why would I bother paying Lenaghan and his posse hundreds of thousands, if not millions, to do the same?