Been trying to process my thoughts on all this since news started breaking that both Wakey and Cas would be getting A's on Tuesday night. With further news breaking regarding where clubs (not just us) lost points, I thought I would wait to try and compose myself a bit.
I still think that IMG need time. This is still very much the first phase of a long term plan for the sport. And the sport desperately needed someone coming in with a long term plan. The sport has been stagnating for some time and the constant chopping and changing every few years (licencing for a few years, back to promotion and relegation for a few years, Super 8's...) hasn't helped. IMG have had great success with other sports so I would say that we need to give them time rather than tearing everything up and starting again once more.
That all being said, it doesn't mean that they aren't open for criticism because this has certainly been a rough start and it's highlighted plenty of flaws. On the FC side of things, I do believe that knowing we had a provisional grade A last year gave the club complacency and certainly contributed to what we saw last season. Whilst this may prove to be a good thing for the club in the long term, it was a real slap in the face in the short term. Clubs can't be allowed to be in that position where they can contemplate throwing a season. Performance has to be the bulk of the grading going forward. As others have pointed out, you get the performance right and a lot of the other stuff sorts itself.
So I wasn't surprised that we dropped to Grade B. Hoped we wouldn't but expected it and think it was fully deserved. But then you see that we lost points for our LED screens. Screens that are classed as UEFA standard but not good enough for IMG? That's just ridiculous. Then we're losing out because they aren't classing certain "Hull" areas when we're already in that unique position of having to share our area with another club. That's a flaw that counts against both ourselves and KR. Again, ridiculous.
I'm delighted that both Cas and Wakey got Grade A's but how a team that has just spent a season in the Championship can suddenly be a Grade A club is beyond me. And another team that has been struggling in Super League for a number of years has ranked a lot higher than Salford (a competitive team for many years) is just mind boggling. This again comes back to me saying that there needs to be more emphasis on performance than anything else and that includes taking into account what league you are in better than it appears to have been done so far.
Then you hear that Oldham got penalised for moving from a smaller stadium to a better and improved stadium that increased their attendances significantly. How was that remotely fair? And the talk that Doncaster lost a point because a gantry was 40cm too short or something like that for IMG's liking? Give me a break!
So, yeah, plenty of flaws both in how the criteria is applied and the ways teams can potentially manipulate and exploit it. But I don't think it's an all hope is lost situation just yet. As long as there's acknowledgements that changes are required to the criteria as well as by clubs themselves.
Oh yes, and add greater emphasis to youth development. That is key to the future of the sport and something all clubs should be striving to improve on.
