London Broncos’ part-owner Gary Hetherington has spoken about the club’s 2026 Super League snub as well as their ambitions for 2027.

The decision to expand Super League to 14 teams offered hope to clubs such as London that they could earn promotion to the top tier with 12 clubs decided by IMG gradings, as had been set out at the start of the season, and two others promoted as part of an application process.

London were among the clubs who applied to enter Super League but ultimately they missed out to Toulouse Olympique and York Knights, both of whom had ranked next best on IMG anyway, with the Broncos sat in 16th behind relegated Salford Red Devils.

Many had expected the Broncos to be promoted with the club actually having recruited as if they would have been in Super League with a number of NRL stars having made the switch. As such, it’s been a fairly dominant start to the season for them in the Championship with London having won every game with relative ease.

Speaking on Sky Sports’ The Bench Podcast, Hetherington gave his assessment of his first few months being involved with the club, stating: “Things are going well, the rugby is very solid. We have a very strong squad of players and we have an outstanding training facility that used to belong to London Irish rugby union club.

“We’ve got an outstanding coach in Jason Demetriou, Danny Ward is back in the fold as well so the rugby side is very solid but the real challenge is to build a business and a support base.”

London Broncos building for possible 2027 Super League entry

That challenge of building a business is being aided massively by the club’s majority owners, Grant Wecshel and Darren Lockyer, both of whom have strong connections with Weschel an established businessman and Lockyer one of the game’s greatest ever players.

“The arrival of Grant Wecshel and Darren Lockyer is significant because they’ve got an ambition for the club to be successful as well,” Hetherington said of the pair before addressing whether he was surprised London didn’t make the Super League grade in 2026.

He responded: “I thought London would have got the vote to go in because I think we’d have been competitive in Super League. In some respects that creates a bit more time to build the operation we need to build.”

Asked if that frustrated him, the 70-year-old admitted: “I was a bit (frustrated) because I feel that we would have been ready to go,” however, he underlined the positive aspects of missing out – namely having the time to build an organisation that can enter the competition for 2027.

Hetherington explained: “The extra time that we’ve now got, with a winning team because I think you need to build a winning culture, is helpful and we’re hoping to be in Super League next year.”

At the time of writing, it’s expected that Super League will remain a 14-team competition with IMG grading being the basis for the competition’s make-up, however, that’s not concrete.