{"id":107682,"date":"2025-09-01T20:54:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-01T20:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/107682\/"},"modified":"2025-09-01T20:54:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-01T20:54:10","slug":"st-helens-legend-rips-into-super-league-decision-making-and-accuses-owners-of-selfishness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/107682\/","title":{"rendered":"St Helens legend rips into Super League decision making and accuses owners of selfishness"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Super\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

St Helens legend Jon Wilkin has become a prominent figure on rugby league broadcasts since his retirement, with the former back rower not afraid to voice his opinions on the state of the sport.<\/p>\n

Once again he has spoken his true feelings on where the game is headed, this time explaining his thoughts on the lack of leadership at the sport\u2019s top level, believing that Super League club owners are governed by their own self interest and do not care about the sport\u2019s potential.<\/p>\n

The recent decision whereby clubs voted to expand the top division<\/a> to 14 teams was met with a 9-2 swing, with Wigan Warriors abstaining and both Hull clubs voting against, but were in favour of the league growing ahead of 2027.<\/p>\n

Wilkin believes this selfishness from clubs is what is holding the game back, with clubs that refuse to improve having as much power as the ones who want the game to move forward.<\/p>\n

Speaking on Sky Sports\u2019 The Bench<\/a> podcast, he said: \u201cThere\u2019s 12 teams, so 12 votes. Huddersfield are not going to vote for less teams because they are at risk, Castleford aren\u2019t, Salford aren\u2019t. What I\u2019m saying is there\u2019s a lot of reasons why a lot of these clubs wouldn\u2019t. That\u2019s three out of 12.. It\u2019s not hard to get the vote through.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Super League pundit explained that he finds it so ironic that the sport\u2019s key decision makers can\u2019t take lessons from the values of the sport, teamwork, leadership etc. to build and grow the game, instead it is run by clubs who only look out for themselves.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cEvery team I\u2019ve played in, there\u2019s an element of self-sacrifice. You are selfless, you do things for each other, and that\u2019s the problem. We\u2019ve got clubs who have independent needs, and we\u2019ll do whatever they can to get what they need, and that\u2019s not a team. That\u2019s the difference.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve not played on a team where every single individual member is just doing stuff they need to be successful. And it\u2019s weird that we\u2019re in professional sport yet our sport learns very little from the sport that we\u2019re in. All of the lesson on how to collaborate, how to get on and how to be part of a team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wilkin believes that the game needs to stop resting on it\u2019s history and try break into new territory that will advance the game, like they do in Australia.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cWe are proud of our history, but history can hold you back as well. Everybody\u2019s a stakeholder, everybody\u2019s got their view, everybody\u2019s not happy. It\u2019s such a British way. It\u2019s like inertia by decision paralysis. \u2018You can\u2019t do this, they\u2019ll be upset\u2019. \u2018You can\u2019t do that, they\u2019ll be upset\u2019. Whereas the thing what the NRL will do, really strong leadership go, we\u2019re just doing this. \u2018We\u2019re going to have a franchise in Perth\u2019, and everybody goes \u2018cool, you know?\u2019 Whereas over here, \u2018we\u2019re going to have a team in London, no we\u2019re not\u2019. That\u2019s the difference.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"St Helens legend Jon Wilkin has become a prominent figure on rugby league broadcasts since his retirement, with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":107683,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-107682","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}