RFL Chair depends controversial aspect about IMG vote

Recently clubs voted in favour of IMG’s proposals which will bring in a grading system and end traditional promotion and relegation.

However, some, especially the Keighley Cougars, had an issue with the system behind the vote with Super League clubs given two votes compared to the other clubs.

However, RFL Chair Tony Sutton defended the system and highlighted the fact there was a normal majority anyway:

“What would be much much worse is that we’d changed the voting weights specifically for this process, those terms have been in place for over a decade so we simply use them as a framework. There was a simple majority in each league anyway.”

He also addressed Keighley’s opposition:

“My view is that they’ve proved exactly how they can improve. I think it was three weekends ago they were the tenth best attended in the country when they played Bradford at home. I don’t know what marketing or digital and social media support they put behind that but they achieved nearly a 5,000 crowd.

“That shows that absolutely it can be done and obviously they picked the right fixture and the timing probably worked pretty well but they demonstrated exactly what you can do at that level. I think they’ve shown what can be done and I suppose the challenge for them is to do that a bit more consistently.”