“IMG have never visited our club” – Backlash to ‘flawed’ grading system goes into overdrive

Not even 36 hours have passed since IMG released their preliminary grades at 10am yesterday but a flurry of clubs, ranging from Super League to League One, have released statements of discontent surrounding this new era of ‘spreadsheet rugby league’ that Leeds Rhinos have found themselves leading the way in.

It was IMG’s D-Day, more accurately known as the day in which the preliminary grades for all professional clubs would be released, thereby allowing them to plan and build in preparation of next year’s implementation.

Those grades will then determine which league each team is put in with all Grade A sides being guaranteed a spot in Super League and teams then filtering down from that point.

It seemed initially that Castleford Tigers had broken the 10am embargo when they confirmed their rank of 13th via a post on X, formerly Twitter, at 9:37am however they instead outlined an admin error within their grading.

“At 7pm yesterday evening, I received a phone call from Tony Sutton, CEO of the RFL to inform me that the RFL had made a mistake on one of the data lines in finance,” Castleford’s Managing Director Mark Grattan confirmed, explaining that dropped the Tigers from 11th to 13th.

The grades were then released at 10am as expected and it wasn’t long before the next statement was out this time from Keighley Cougars, one of the teams that had led the campaign against grading in the first place.

Keighley were quick to react as they shared a statement to their website at 10:01am expressing ‘disappointment’ over their Grade C.

“We see our rank 30th as an insult to our club and fans,” the Cougars statement explained before going on to highlight the off-field development that ‘spread-sheet rugby league’ doesn’t show.

Shortly after the disdain from Keighley came scepticism from Featherstone Rovers, the 2023 Championship winners who fell once again in the play-offs.

Rovers shared their statement at 10:03 and were keen to highlight that they were one of the sides, like Keighley, who voted against the introduction of grading.

They didn’t just outline that but they doubled down on their stance, stating the new IMG era “was a further strengthening of the glass ceiling that has protected some Super League Clubs for 25 years”.

Featherstone had ranked an impressive 15th, sitting as the third highest non Super League side, however their attack on the system continued as they alleged it was open to manipulation and lies.

“One troubling aspect of the scoring assessment is how these numbers are actually audited,” their statement read.

“There are two important issues for us here; We have always asked for independence from the RFL on these matters particularly in the areas of fandom where we have significant concerns about declared attendances in the game, these scores do not appear to match reality of what fans of our game observe on a week-to-week basis and we urgently call for a more independent challenge to this vital issue.”

They ultimately pushed even harder though, finishing their statement with the following declaration.

“The current leadership of our game and IMG needs to urgently get a grip of the direction of travel because at the present time, our view is that we are on a downward spiral which needs to be urgently addressed.”

After that stern talking to from Featherstone to both the RFL and IMG there was a 20 minute ceasefire before Hunslet released their version of events at 10:25.

In doing so they became the first club to actually reveal how they had scored in terms of each of the five pillars, rather than just confirming their combined total.

Similarly they outlined their opposition to the system at the time of proposal, before unveiling their scores that there were “less than impressed by“.

Their scores across the five pillars were:

“Performance: 0.46 (from a possible 5)
“Fandom: 2.05 (from a possible 5)
“Finances: 1.75 (from a possible 4.5)
“Stadium: 0.68 (from a possible 3)
“Community: 2.00 (from a possible 2.5)”

CEO Neil Hampshire commented on how the RFL will now review the process and their willingness to provide input, finishing the statement with a call to return to  “the days when the rewards for sport were focussed on how you performed on the pitch!”

Perhaps the most contentious grading had been that of Super League bound London Broncos who scored the lowest Grade B of any club, something that would indicate they would almost certainly be relegated following the 2024 season.

As such fans were eager to hear what they had to say and that statement came in the afternoon at 2:59pm, with a surprisingly accepting mood.

Those wanting fireworks must wait instead for Bonfire Night as London simply stated on their desire to “improve on this score with the long-term ambition of achieving an A grade.”

Teams held off for the rest of Wednesday but early on Thursday morning both Whitehaven and Bradford Bulls offered their thoughts on the process.

For Haven they expressed disappointment at how IMG could possibly grade them when there hadn’t been any visit made to the club.

“We as a club are unsure on how certain areas of the grading can be judged when the club haven’t been visited to gain a perspective on the number of pillars that we offer,” the club explained.

As for the Bulls they were more encouraged, ranking 14th and realising that just their home at Odsal was preventing them from achieving a Super League dream, they called on the council to support them with major investment.

“That grading should leave no one in any doubt that the single biggest impediment to getting our club back to the Super League is the absence of an appropriate 21st century facility,” they said of their high Grade B.

More positive reaction then came with Newcastle Thunder, who as of two weeks ago had suggested they wouldn’t fulfil their playing duties in League One in 2024, confirmed that they were trying to mount a comeback, with their 18th placed IMG grade a significant boost in doing so.

Calling on funding of approximately £50,000, they stated that their Grade B score ” shows that we have some solid foundations for the sport in our region, although granted there is still lots more to do.”

From the North East to the North West and it was a different outlook for Workington, who like neighbours Whitehaven, highlighted IMG’s failure to account for work in the community.

“Sometimes it is difficult to assess these activities (within the local community) against stark data alone,” Workington Town expressed 17 hours after the initial grading.

Instead they called for “a decent league structure” that helped rather than hindered, before joking: “We can also jump a few places if someone fancies buying us a big screen.”

Then finally, as of now, the team at the top of the tree and who have more than just a big screen – Leeds Rhinos released their statement.

The Rhinos rank as the number one club with 17.49 points out of a possible 20 but Chief Executive Gary Hetherington isn’t intent for the club to rest on their laurels, instead urging them to push on.

“Whilst we are pleased with these results, we will not be complacent and the process has identified a number of areas where we can improve and we will be striving to do so,” Hetherington stated.

“We look forward to working with IMG and RL Commercial on developing the grading criteria in the months ahead as we approach a big season for the sport in 2024.”