Leeds Rhinos, Wigan Warriors, St Helens, Catalans Dragons, Warrington Wolves, Hull KR and Hull FC are all Grade A clubs and will all be guaranteed a place in Super League and will be immune to relegation.
Meanwhile, Featherstone Rovers have only ranked 15th under IMG’s gradings which is perhaps not a fair reflection of their success in recent times.
The Rovers have issued a statement against the gradings and underlined a belief that clubs could be lying about about attendances.
They said:
“One troubling aspect of the scoring assessment is how these numbers are actually audited. 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.
“We strongly believe this should be a separate independent entity charged with the routine auditing of areas such as fandom, stadium facilities and community so that this process is more robust and transparent than is currently the case.
This duty also needs also to be separated from the RFL for practical reasons, we appear to have more staff dealing with this assessment process than actually marketing our game at the present time with the commercial results of the game evidencing a really poor year commercially on all fronts.
“Despite the significant ramifications of these assessments on our clubs, we are concerned that we are yet to have any direct dialogue or visit from IMG despite being one of the leading Championship Clubs for the past decade. On the back of a strong World Cup, very positive terrestrial viewing figures through Channel 4, St Helens winning the World Club Challenge and strong progress in the Women’s game, we just seem to have again missed huge opportunities in 2023 to capitalise on these opportunities.”
The Rovers were one of the clubs who voted against IMG’s recommendations originally alongside the likes of Keighley Cougars.
