IMG reveal promotion and relegation could still feature in Super League

A lot has been made of IMG’s grading criteria for Super League and how it would be the end of generic promotion and relegation with clubs like Keighley Cougars saying it would create a closed shop in the top flight.

However, one of the leaders at IMG, Matt Dwyer, has revealed that promotion and relegation could still feature in Super League.

This came on 5 Live where Dave Woods asked Dwyer:

“Playing mind games here but let’s use the table as it is now, Wakefield bottom of Super League and Featherstone at the top of the Championship. If they both score the same number of points then do Featherstone come up by virtue of the fact that promotion and relegation is very much an instinctive thing in British sport?”

Dwyer’s answer was: “The way that the scoring works out, it’s quite unlikely that we’ll end up with two teams on the same score.

“On the chances that there is two teams on exactly the same score we have said that performance will be the deciding factor, so you would get movement in that scenario.”

When Woods looked for confirmation, asking, “Just to confirm, Featherstone would be promoted?”

Dwyer said: “Yes, that’s correct. But as I said at the beginning , the likelihood across all those variables that we end up with two teams on the exact same score I think is pretty low.”

He also confirmed that the variables would be considered over three years: “Most of the variables run over a three-year period, so if you’re having a terrible year with injuries for example there is a sort of ‘weighting out’ of that over time. We are looking to reward consistency on the pitch, as well as consistency of performance off the pitch as well.”