Make the Championship a closed shop says Kenny Logan

London Scottish director Kenny Logan has called for the Green King IPA Championship to be ring-fenced to allow professional second tier clubs time to develop their businesses.
Former Scotland and Wasps wing Logan believes the gap between the Championship and National One has widened to a point where too few lower league clubs are interested in promotion.
And he claims closing off the top two divisions would prevent clubs over-spending on player wages and enable them to improve their academies and stadium facilities instead.
“We’ve got London Scottish back to where it should be, which is the Championship, but there have been some terrible scary moments along the way,” Logan said.
“The Championship is a hard school and we nearly went straight back down in 2012 after fighting so hard to get up the year before. You come up with a team that’s winning and think you’ll do well, but suddenly you’re in a dogfight – as ourselves, Jersey and Ealing have found.
“It’s a hard thing to say, but if I were the RFU I would hold the Championship to 12 teams, have no relegation and let the clubs start to build teams, academies and facilities that will then enable them to then move up to the Premiership on a proper footing.
“At the moment we’ve got a lot of professional teams near the bottom who are terrified of being relegated because they know it’s a hard – and very expensive – league to get back into.”
Logan’s comments will not endear him to National One teams like Doncaster and Esher, who are fighting to win back their Championship places. But he claims not enough National One sides are interested in stepping up to make promotion and relegation worthwhile.
“I’d ring-fence the top two divisions now – at least for a few years – because there are lots of clubs in National One who don’t want to come up because of the cost,” Logan said.
“Championship clubs are putting a lot of money in and the potential cost of relegation is very high.”
Scottish break new ground this Friday when they host the first ‘St. Andrew’s Day at The Savoy’ – a celebration of Scots in London and a fundraiser for the The Carer’s Trust and Yorkhill Children’s Charity in Glasgow.
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