The UAFC

BR wrote:Genuine question. Who controls the game rules of American football? How much say does NFL have?

There is no national governing body for the sport so the rules are totally under control of the competition organisers like the NFL.

There are minor differences in rules between the NFL, NCAA (College football), Arena Football and other leagues but the differences aren't huge as players do move between the different competitions and the NFL is reliant on the colleges for the draft intake each year. Arena Football is indoor so the pitch is smaller. Canadian Football League has slightly different rules again and their pitch is wider than NFL.

Am I right in thinking that Canadian rules was traditionally even more different, but has come towards American rules in more recent times?

Don't know TBH. I worked in Canada for a while so was aware of some of the differences between CFL and NFL but not the history.

Snipe Watson wrote: Unfortunately we need them playing rugby union. That's why I have a problem with them swanning off into the sunset and doing their own thing.

Do we really though?Surely they actually need to be playing Rugby Union as much or maybe even more than we need them to be part of it.

The PRL Clubs are largely businesses. They realise that they need to be part of the Rugby Union family because as a standalone sport of 12 or so professional clubs only playing with each other they don't really have an attractive "product" at all. To make their "product saleable to the TV audiences etc they need to be part of the bigger sport - they need the european games, they need the kudos of having the big international players on their team. They also need to be able to keep connected with schools and junior rugby to develop players for them. But in doing this, from their point of view as businessmen, they cede too much control over their product to others whose first motivation isn't to maximise their profit for them. Hence their endless chipping away at the structures to try and gain more and more control over their own destiny. I totally understand why they do it but I don't like it and to me it proves that the Unions and the IRB need to be strong in their resistance. Because in their quest for control and profit the PRL clubs don't really care who they run over to get there.

If they started playing to different laws than those set down by the IRB for the game internationally then surely the RFU would cut off any funding to them as they would no longer be playing the same game and the English side would have to be picked from players outside the PRL clubs. The refs employed by PRL would also not be able to ref outside their little closed shop as they would not be using same laws.
Wray is full of hot air and mad dog tom kite

World Rugby should pre-empt this and kick them all out now!!

Russ wrote:

pwrmoore wrote:It strikes me that the PRL need to feck off. If they want to be rugby clubs then they need to agree to follow the structure, laws and constraints of the IRB and the eRFU and accept that the degree to which they can influence those will be restricted because they are just one small part of an international game that is much bigger than they are. If they want to create their own exciting brand of Rugby-like entertainment they can feck-off with all their clubs and play amongst themselves and leave the rest of us to play Rugby.

Next games will be scripted and fueds will take precedence

If you smelllllllllllllll what the wray is cookin!

UlsterNo9 wrote:

Russ wrote:

pwrmoore wrote:It strikes me that the PRL need to feck off. If they want to be rugby clubs then they need to agree to follow the structure, laws and constraints of the IRB and the eRFU and accept that the degree to which they can influence those will be restricted because they are just one small part of an international game that is much bigger than they are. If they want to create their own exciting brand of Rugby-like entertainment they can feck-off with all their clubs and play amongst themselves and leave the rest of us to play Rugby.

Next games will be scripted and fueds will take precedence

If you smelllllllllllllll what the wray is cookin!

All I am smelling is shiite