TOMORROW’S RFL extraordinary general meeting has been called in an attempt to resolve the ongoing dispute over how professional rugby league should be structured and financed going forward.

Super League want a return to a one-up, one-down promotion and relegation format between themselves and the Championship, thereby scrapping the current Super 8s system.

Under the proposal being voted on, Super League would remain at 12 clubs, with the Championship being extended to 14 teams next season - meaning only one team (rather than two) would be relegated to League One and three (rather than two) would be promoted from the third tier.

That would see the top two go up automatically from League One and would guarantee second-placed Bulls promotion rather than the current likelihood of them having to go up via the play-offs.

However, Bulls owner Andrew Chalmers remains opposed to the proposal, with wider implications at stake, and claims the vast majority of other Championship and League One clubs feel the same.

A key sticking point with non-Super League clubs is the lack of clarity beyond the current TV deal, which runs out in 2021. Under the new proposal, lower league clubs face the prospect of receiving a lower percentage of funding from whatever agreement is struck.

Like Bulls, Swinton Lions would benefit next season from the proposal as they currently occupy 11th place in the Championship but would escape relegation.

However, they too are against it, with Swinton chairman Andy Mazey telling totalrl.com: “The fear is, that if we scrap the Qualifiers – the only thing currently bonding Super League to Championship and League One – there would be no link between us. And there’s a fear that – come 2021 – Super League would cut adrift and strike their own deal with broadcasters, and we would be left as the poor relations, on our own.”

The Championship clubs have indicated they would drop their opposition in return for a deal where a second club could gain promotion via a play-off with the 11th-placed Super League club and guaranteed funding beyond 2021.

Meanwhile, Hull and Hull KR chairmen, Adam Pearson and Neil Hudgell, yesterday warned clubs about rejecting the deal.

Their joint statement read: “Beyond the end of the current television deal financial guarantees are difficult to give. It is hard to predict the landscape in 2022. Nothing will be certain. 

"The only guarantee should the proposals be rejected, is that the RFL and the rest of the game will have to rely solely on its own properties – the Challenge Cup, a modest international calendar and the Championship and League One competitions to fund their respective futures. It would be a brave, and in our opinion foolish choice to make.”