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Rather the story goes that the CFL plans to REPLACE the WLAF as the NFL's training league. They seem to believe that if the NFL bank rolled the CFL the CFL would survive and also become THE place to train future NFL stars. What would this mean for the WLAF? Nothing short of disaster.

Should the CFL replace the WLAF as the feeder league to the NFL then the great NFL players the WLAF get to play with for a year will disappear. The whole level of play would drop off.

I like Canadians, I love Canada. But if they think they (the CFL) can just walk in and take the role of the WLAF then believe me... war could well be declared.

There's a old saying "If you can't beat'em join'em". If the CFL wish to JOIN the WLAF that's more than fine with me, alter the league structure to have two devisions etc etc (you've read my views before). But to REPLACE the WLAF, no way. We've been waiting years to get our league and we want to support it. Just because the CFL can't keep going isn't our fault.

There is also another angle in all this, I think it would be bad for the CFL. The whole point of the CFL is that it is Canadian, not American. Canadians pride themselves on being different from Americans. This could be a disaster in terms of public relations. The biggest problem in all this as in the WLAF and the NFL (save for the Packers!) is that the fans don't have a say. Rich owners do. Perhaps if the CFL listened to their fans and the WLAF listen to us we could start getting somewhere. I only wish the NFL & Fox would consider putting the WLAF franchises up for sale... I can think of about 10,000 people who would be more than willing to pay out 100 pounds for a share of the Claymores.

However I don't think WLAF fans should panic yet. The NFL have invested plenty of money in the WLAF and I don't think they are ready to throw all that away (not after last time). Europe represents a total market of about 300 Million People. That's more than Canada does.

Doug Adamson