Super League owner suggests move to SIXTEEN teams after expansion
Wakefield Trinity owner Matt Ellis.
Wakefield Trinity owner Matt Ellis has revealed why he backed the decision to expand Super League to 14 teams: and has even suggested he would increase it to 16.
Trinity were one of nine clubs to vote in favour of a move to go from 12 teams to 14 next season, and Ellis has insisted that the major reason behind his decision to approve the decision was to remove loop fixtures.
He pointed to the increasing possibility of an uneven fixture calendar potentially deciding the play-off race this season, and insisted his first priority is to make sure the fixture list is even.
He told BBC Radio Leeds: “I just think going forward, the loop fixtures are a massive issue. They skew the league year in, year out.
“It’s so nip and tuck this year and I just think that if you miss out on the play-offs by two, or the top two, then you can look at it and say the fixture list might have edged it one way or the other. Especially this year with Salford.”
However, Ellis also revealed he could envisage a move even beyond 14 teams in the longer term future.
He said: “There’s other parts of it as well. Trying to grow the game and trying long-term, I see it going past 14 and maybe going one step further and getting up to 16 and spreading the game throughout into new areas. Potentially York and other clubs like that.”
Ellis also provided an alternative for Magic Weekend should that be removed from the calendar as a standard Super League round – raising the prospect of both a round of the Challenge Cup and the 1895 Cup Final being held at the event.
He said: “There’s been no firm information in regards to Magic. There was a suggestion on the slides on Monday that we could move the quarter-finals to Magic but that’s still to be debated.
“That would be a great thing because it would give other clubs in the Championship a chance to get to Magic. That would help that. Whether the 1895 could get there, could that final get there? They’re the sort of things that could be added to it.”
