FORMER Super League official Shane Richardson has hit out at the state of UK rugby league and the return of Nigel Wood.
Richardson, who formerly sat on the board of Gateshead Thunder and Hull FC as well as the RFL, believes that the only way rugby league can thrive in the northern hemisphere is for a ten-team Super League including two clubs from France.
The NRL has long been linked with a takeover of Super League, with plans gathering place to potentially see a 33% stake – but only if the NRL takes full administrative control from 2028.
Richardson appeared on James Graham’s The Bye Round podcast to discuss the issues.
“First of all, I’m the only Australian to ever serve on the Super League board. I was on the board in 2000 with Gary Hetherington, Nigel Wood, Maurice Lindsay, and some other bloke,” Richardson said.
“The same people are still there except for Maurice, unfortunately. Nothing has changed in those times.”
Wood has now returned to the RFL as interim chairman, something which Richardson reflected on: “Don’t even get me started on that, I’ve made my point clear on (Wood), it’s a farce.”
For the Wests Tigers chief executive, the issue is obvious.
“The challenge you’ve always had is that England have always had this insular competition. I love English football and the fans, I love all that but at the end of the day, they live in that (M62) corridor,” he said.
“They try to change it all the time, but nothing ever changes. The only way they get recognition is because of St Helens, Wigan, Hull and Warrington. Those millionaires, they sit there and think, ‘What the hell is happening here?’
“Let’s have a broader picture. You’ve got a fantastic game and any time you’re in the s**t the players get you out of it, but you’ve got to think outside of the box.
“You can’t think that Batley will bring more fans to the game than Catalans, and that’s the way they think. You’ve got to think about how we’re going to get a bigger slice of the pie.”
Richardson explained how a ten-team Super League is the way forward – and that there has to be two teams from France.
“This is the way it’s got to look, you can’t have promotion and relegation; you’ve got to have two teams from France.
“There are six certainties from England and two based on what the finances are and what we put in, so we don’t have a Salford situation again.
“You set that up and have ten teams and then you take that product to these people who are looking for world things.
“You do a deal at the highest level, then they all buy in, the teams get more money, and the game gets more money.
“Nothing affects the RFL or the running of the amateur game because, at the moment, there’s a pool that they get a percentage of that goes back to run the RFL, which is about 27%.
“They’ll still get 27%, but they’ll get 27% of a lot more. But they’ve got to run the game like we run the game.
“We can do all that, but the NRL has to control it for the period because we have to put people in who know how to run the game. It should be called NRL Europe.”
