League affairs Amidst the Super League's teething issues, speculations continued regarding future reforms. The place of traditional small market teams remained a hot topic. While the idea of contracting some teams was gaining a measure of acceptance, a working party led by RFL chairman
Rodney Walker suggested reducing the number of clubs at the bottom of the pyramid, while returning to a two-tier structure and enlarging the Super League to 14 or 16 clubs. This was poorly received by the game's more progressive observers due to the Super League's already palpable lack of depth, as seen during the
World Club Championship. Meanwhile, a document circulated internally by Rugby League Europe discussed further streamlining the Super League by axing clubs like
Castleford,
Halifax and
Oldham and in favor of expansion markets such as
Glasgow,
Leicester,
South Wales or even
Dublin. Caisley and RFL chief executive
Maurice Lindsay strongly denied any firm commitment to this option. Despite the funds provided by News Ltd., the greater cost of running a Super League team put many teams in the red, and the introduction of a salary cap was mooted during a meeting of executives in July. At the end of the season, the
Paris Saint-Germain team, which had brought the league some of its most favorable headlines, was dissolved for failure to generate sufficient income. Relegated Oldham went into administration with more than £1 million in liabilities. The club entered voluntary liquidation in October. Its assets including its name and history were retained for a second Oldham club which entered the
third tier for the 1998 season. Its chairman John Quinn called for a freeze of the relegation system, a measure that
Widnes and
Keighley had successfully fought to repel at the Super League's inception. The season also ended on a negative note for the RFL itself, with losses of £1 million, the governing body's first operational deficit in its 102-year history. The tensions between chief executive Lindsay, the advocate of a perceived Super League elite, and chairman Walker, who had the favors of the rank-and-file clubs, escalated throughout the season. Lindsay became a candidate for the presidency of
The Tote, inviting rumors of his departure from the sport, but ended up not being chosen. In late summer, he was also targeted by an article from tabloid
The Sun, detailing more than £100,000 in personal expenses over the previous two years. Unrest was such that Murdoch's right-hand man Rob Cowley was dispatched from Australia to help pacify the situation, which actually marked the first in-person meeting with a high level News executive since the signing of the Super League agreement twenty-eight months earlier. An at-large board was re-installed, to be led by a newly elected chairman, a position for which Walker ran unopposed. Shortly after, RFL project coordinator Neil Tunnicliffe was promoted to the position of deputy chief executive, working alongside Lindsay.
Other At the end of 1996, a fan survey was organized to help chose a permanent nickname for
Leeds RLFC, the last Super League member not to have one. The team had sporadically used the folk name "Loiners", but it never caught on. It subsequently became known as the Rhinos. In May,
Sheffield became the first publicly traded British rugby club of either code, although the introduction was met with a lackluster response. Ownership attributed it to disappointing on-field performance, while analysts blamed it on the sport's limited profile in the city. With the advent of professional
rugby union, a number of league players were now tempted back into the ranks of the fifteen-man code by lucrative winter offers. Wigan reacted by prohibiting such short-term contracts. Following dealings with a pair of unscrupulous agents, the Super League reached out to the
Rugby League Professional Players' Association to join forces in the creation of a register of approved agents. Halifax attracted negative attention during a trip to the south of France (where their game against Paris had been relocated to take advantage of holiday crowds). They were accused of damaging six rooms and the swimming pool of a
Béziers hotel following their loss to the French club. The RFL's Strategic Planning Commission led by technical director
Joe Lydon put forward a proposal to officially recognize farm team agreements between Super League and
Division One clubs, acknowledging the relationships that already existed on a case-by-case basis between Bradford and
Dewsbury, as well as between Leeds and
Bramley. The initiative, which would have allowed up to five players to shuttle between parent and affiliate clubs each week, was shut down by FASDA (the entity representing Division One and
Division Two clubs). ==Table==