sport news MARTIN SAMUEL: Getting rid of relegation slices at the heart and soul of sport trends now
Imagine if, as a result of the failed Super League project, a trade-off was promised to the breakaway group.
Here’s the deal. From 2024, the Premier League would be divided into category clubs. The big six — Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham — would be Category A. And Category A clubs, no matter where they finished, could not be relegated.
Also in Category A and immune would be those getting an average gate of 40,000 or more, like West Ham, Newcastle and Aston Villa. This makes nine clubs who, no matter how poorly they performed, could not be demoted, and 11 who could.
The proposed Super League which was endorsed by the Glazers (above) wanted to scrap relegation
As for promotion, this would also be subject to external factors. Not just points, but Category A potential.
Reading, Burnley and Queens Park Rangers might be in the play-off places, but in terms of gate figures those clubs are 21st, ninth and 19th. So what about Sunderland, Middlesbrough and West Brom instead? They have Category A capacity.
And it’s a horrific plan, obviously. Slices at the heart, and soul, of sport. It’s an idea that nobody with any feeling for athletic competition could countenance, the blueprint of accountants and money men, masquerading as a vision. Yet it’s here, and it’s now.
Detailed above is the rough sketch proposed by IMG for rugby league. Just put Wigan and St Helens where Liverpool and Chelsea would be.
IMG undertook a six-month review and this is their ‘reimagining’ of the sport in this country. A competition in which the elite are exempt from failure and clubs are graded into categories by metrics on and off the field. It sounds far-fetched. How can a pyramid system thrive and capture imaginations without open competition? Yet here is the proposal in question:
Rugby's Super League are planning to get rid of relegation, but it eats at the heart and soul of sport
‘Participation in the top tier to be based on a range of on and off field measures, delivered through a club grading system with the aim of supporting financial sustainability and encouraging investment into clubs.
‘“Category A” clubs will be guaranteed participation in the top tier whilst “Category B” clubs will be re-assessed annually with the highest-ranking clubs occupying the remaining slots in the top tier. Promotion and relegation will continue on the field of play between the second and third tiers.’
So there it is. Conventional promotion and relegation between the Super League and Championship will end in 2024 when a body — IMG, presumably — will decide who fits into which category and splits the sport accordingly.
It is expected there will not be enough Category A clubs to fill the Super League, leaving some in jeopardy from relegation, while others will be secure.
Why bother with a sport at all then? Why bother with actual matches if all that matters are commercial considerations, crowds and revenue?
See how many can be dragged into a stadium in Widnes and if it’s more than they get at Warrington, Widnes win. All the sport seems to be doing is interfering with IMG’s metrics. And amazingly, the 37 professional and semi-professional clubs look set to vote the recommendations through on October 13.
They must be desperate. Not just to agree to a format so harmful to true competition, but to allow IMG to implement a glorified franchising system.
This season, four of the original founders of the Northern Union in 1895 — Leigh, Batley, Halifax and Widnes — were in the Championship. Imagine football proposing that clubs such as Blackburn, Bolton, Preston and Notts County were barred from entering the Premier League, even if their ranking merited it.
One of the reasons football’s Super League failed so spectacularly was that fans despise a closed shop. Manchester United were relegated in 1974, Tottenham in 1977, Chelsea in 1988, Manchester City in 2001, yet no true fan of those clubs would support a system in which their team could never go down.
The Super League as good as promised it, and was reviled. One of the banners at the famous demonstration outside Chelsea read: ‘We want our cold nights in Stoke.’ And to get a cold night in Stoke, first Stoke have to be allowed to play in the league. Not just if they fit the commercial profile selected by IMG; if, quite simply, they are good enough.
For that’s the great lie being perpetuated here. That the Category A criteria will ensure professional standards. League positions are the indicator of professional standards. Is there a more professional club in football right now than Manchester City? Probably not. And if there is it will be a club with considerably inferior resources that is punching above its weight: like Brighton. Let’s not kid ourselves that IMG are about nurturing the rugby league equivalent of Brighton.
IMG say their gradings will be ‘objective, easily measurable, reliable, transparent and valid’, and easily measurable means numbers. Commercial wealth potential, crowd potential, investment potential. It is hard to evaluate whether Reading are doing a better job than QPR, but any fool can see Sunderland have the promise to be bigger than the pair put together. And that is the part of the business that IMG know.
Yet most of what we can now see coming, rugby league has tried before. Evaluating off-field performance was abandoned in 2014, licensing and franchising was ditched, too; and no doubt there will be another attempt to monetise the capital city and London Broncos.
Yet unless rugby league followers are very different from those in other sports, they will like jeopardy, they will like the dream of moving through the pyramid, the thought of playing Batley or Widnes again one day; and they will like all of sport’s little wrinkles and rainbows. The stuff the money men can never understand.
Arrogant Wales have no right to interfere with Bale's club in the US
Quite a few clubs must be very grateful that they were not suckered into acting as Gareth Bale’s
