Super League, Championship and League One set for new structure in 2025

Super League, the Championship and League One could all look radically different in 2025 and the years to come.

It was confirmed this week that the Championship and League One would be maintaining its current format despite calls for change among League One clubs after Newcastle Thunder and London Skolars both withdrew.

But with Newcastle battling hard to return to league, the RFL have instead turned against notions of East and West conferences or including reserve teams like Leeds Rhinos, Wigan Warriors and Warrington Wolves.

Instead they are maintaining the current structure but it has been confirmed that clubs have entered an open forum to develop a new structure for 2025.

However, the new structure could expand to Super League soon with talk of a 14 team league. In fact, Matt Dwyer of IMG revealed that the plans for 14 teams in Super League have been accelerated.

“I think we were very clear from the beginning that objective number one was to get 12 Category A clubs and then objective number two was to expand the size of the league.

“So that probably has accelerated it because we are closer to having 12 Category A clubs than we originally thought we were going to be. I think some of the improvements that we have seen, even just over the last 12 months, means that there are clubs that are not far below those seven Category A clubs as well.

“If they continue on the path they’re going along now, it’s not unreasonable that they’ll be hitting Category A status in the near future. So I guess the answer  is yes. It’s probably does accelerate based off of that perspective.”

So in the years to come we could see a shift to 14 teams in Super League and a radically new structure beneath Super League.

It is likely that the new structure beneath Super League comes before we see 14 teams in the top flight but these changes certainly seem to be coming with the sport growing and developing in a positive way.

That being said, for all the good IMG has done we have yet to see confirmation of a decision on Castleford Tigers’ appeal.