Plan revealed for seismic Super League promotion and relegation return as proposal made

A proposal to reintroduce a conventional promotion and relegation system into IMG's grading criteria will be discussed at a council meeting next month. The proposal, which Rugby League Live understands has been lodged by Batley Bulldogs, would see the winners of the Championship guaranteed a place in Super League the year after, even if it meant expanding the competition.

The recommendation states that if the club that wins the Championship is a Grade B club, they are promoted to Super League and replace the lowest-ranked Grade B club. Beyond that, if Super League consists exclusively of Grade A clubs, then the winners of the Championship are promoted and Super League expands.

The topic will be discussed at a Council Meeting on December 4th, where clubs from all three tiers, as well as figures from the Rugby Football League and RL Commercial, will be present.

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Provisionally, the proposal has been met with mixed responses from sources who have discussed the matter with Rugby League Live. One slammed the proposal as "hypocritical" as a Super League team could be relegated despite not finishing bottom of the competition. Grade A clubs are immune from relegation and with Super League already consisting of nine clubs who have achieved the highest status it's theoretical that a Grade B club could finish high up the table and still be relegated.

That was the fate London Broncos faced last year and was widely criticised, yet some believe this proposal could put clubs in the exact same position.

Others believe it is a happy medium between adhering to grading and heightening the reward of on-field achievement. Across the sport, many believe the league structure should be determined by on-field performance alone but this proposal, some believe, would integrate both systems at the same time.

It comes at an interesting time. Super League owners met last week and they discussed the possibility of expanding the competition to 14 teams in the future. There is an appetite in some quarters to make that happen but at the heart of those conversations are the financial implications, with most clubs already losing seven-figures sums on an annual basis.

It's worth noting that when IMG first proposed an introduction of the grading system, many clubs believed that promotion and relegation would still be attainable through on-field performance should a Grade B club finish bottom of Super League, which would see them replaced by the winners of the Championship.

Batley were among those to raise concerns. Speaking last year, their chairman, Kevin Nicholas said: "There's a lot of logical ideas in there but my reservation is that promotion and relegation should only be eligible for the bottom club in Super League and the top club in the Championship.

"You can't have someone not finishing bottom of Super League getting relegated and someone not finishing top of the Championship getting promoted. That's my only reservation. But some of the stuff was good.

"If you managed to get a Grade B you'd be eligible for promotion but that's not the case, is it? We need to find out how many points we've got and can we get some more. I thought our target was to get enough to be a Grade B but that's clearly not the target, the target is to get enough points to be in the top twelve, that's probably not possible. It means we're not eligible for promotion no matter how much we improve in the next year or so."

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