Hudgell hoping to see common sense prevail over Super League relegation
HULL KR chairman Neil Hudgell has welcomed Super League chief executive Robert Elstone’s stance on scrapping relegation in 2020 – but conceded the sport’s main powerbroker is now the Rugby Football League.
With no games since midMarch due to the coronavirus, no likely resumption until July at the earliest plus uncertainty about how many fixtures there will be, there have been calls for demotion to be abandoned this year.
Hudgell, whose Rovers side sit second bottom, has previously voiced his concerns on the matter and said he will not continue ploughing money into the East Yorkshire club if they are still going to be under threat of relegation by a “skewed” fixture list.
But Elstone, in an interview with Sky Sports on Wednesday, said “if we’re not there yet (abandoning relegation), it seems very likely to me that we will arrive at that point in the near future.”
Clearly, that would be welcome news for clubs like Toronto Wolfpack – bottom and still winless after last year’s promotion – as well as Hull KR and many others amid such already worrying times.
Before they start celebrating, though, Hudgell told The Yorkshire Post: “We have to remind ourselves that the decision whether there is promotion and relegation sits with the RFL.
“Robert can articulate any view he wants and his views do represent the views – I think – of the vast majority of Super League clubs, if not them all.
“But it is arbitrary because it is the RFL who have obviously to factor in all the competing deeds and demands. I think the powerbroker in the game at the minute, in practical terms, is the RFL. They sit on this Government money (£16m loan) that they are going to distribute whatever way they say fit within the framework of how it’s been allocated to them.
“So we have to pay deference to that and carry on but hope they see sense and decide it’s in the best interests of the game not to have relegation this year.”
Hudgell, who feels increasing the size of Super League in 2021 is a “non-starter” on grounds of finance and size of the talent
ROBERT ELSTONE: pool, says club owners are aiming for a definitive answer from the RFL by the time games have resumed.
He added: “To reiterate, the starting position of this is that the competition lacks integrity when we can’t complete the full set of fixtures and therefore it is wholly unfair where there is a skewered fixture list to then relegate someone. That’s the rationale behind it.
“Of course with the French clubs not being able to play at home before September it means both the Super League and the Championship are influenced as obviously Toulouse are in the Championship as well as Catalans in Super League.
“So it is inevitable there is compromise and consequently we just can’t see why we can have promotion and relegation on that basis.
“I’ve said that I’m not going to be toiling, putting sweat and graft in to keep my club afloat, if I then find them on the outer in six months time and somebody else is benefitting from it.
“That sounds like self-interest but so what? Doesn’t everybody operate on the basis of selfinterest ultimately?”
With wage cuts at his club until the end of November, and players and the majority of staff currently furloughed, Hudgell, like everyone, is doing his utmost to keep his club alive while starved of income.
On the plus side, Rovers were able to announce yesterday that Sir Tom Jones – whose concert at their Hull College Craven Park ground this summer was postponed due to Covid-19 – has rescheduled for Saturday, June 12 next year.
It is hoped Little Mix and Westlife, both also due to feature at Craven Park in July, will follow suit by rearranging for 2021.