Keighley owner addresses whether he will leave the sport after IMG vote

Keighley Cougars certainly didn’t have the outcome they wanted today when a nearly 90% majority voted in favour of the end of normal relegation and promotion.

The Cougars have been avidly against the changes and owner Kaue Garcia spoke to the press after the decision about where the club go from here:

“They’re only revealing the provisional grading at the end of this season so again it’s this drop-feeding of information, you don’t know where you’re at, you don’t know if you should or shouldn’t invest. It’s a bit of a grey area and I think right now if we had to answer we’d have to sit and consider everything.

“Nothing has been released on what are the benchmarks for us to achieve, do you get one point because you have more than 2,000 spectators? Everyone is in the same boat until the end of the season when they reveal the scoring and the benchmarks.”

He was also asked if they would walk away given that based on their views there is no reason to invest if they can’t achieve Super League promotion:

“We’ve invested for the last three or four years, we have put a lot of investment in. We’ve invested heavily, if you came to our ground you’d see the investment. The passion is still there, we love the sport. I think I’m the perfect example of how this sport is so attractive, I’m Brazilian and came to this country ten years ago having heard nothing about rugby league and I’m obsessed about it. I think it’s the best sport in the world but it’s just badly managed if I’m being honest.”