LEIGH Centurions chairman Mike Nolan has finally had to concede that he's flogging a dead horse trying to link his club with London Broncos.

The Hilton Park boss was prepared to offer Super League bosses a £1m deal which effectively would have seen a Leigh team compete in next year's elite competition while enabling the Broncos to stay in the capital - but as an Northern Ford Premiership side.

The Virgin Group, Broncos' backers for the last four years, and Mr Nolan had agreed a deal that would have seen Sir Richard Branson's blue chip company sponsor Leigh to the tune of £350,000 a year for the next three years in Super League as well as releasing up to £150,000 to keep a Broncos teams in London.

Turned it down

"The whole deal would have been worth something like £1m to the game - and Super League turned it down," says a disappointed and frustrated Mr Nolan. "It was a compromise solution which was good for the game as whole. We don't wish to see the Broncos disappear but this deal would have made commercial sense."

Leigh's second successive knock-back from the Super League Europe board looks to have driven the Virgin Group out of rugby league with Branson's financiers now agreeing to sell their 80 per cent stake in the Broncos to minority shareholder David Hughes and his consortium.

That deal means the Broncos will lose The Valley as their headquarters for 2002.

Mr Nolan says in a statement: "The deal means that the Broncos will stay in London but playing at various venues throughout the capital. I understand that Super League have agreed to this.

"Virgin's preferred option was to come to Leigh but their ambitions have been denied by SLE and the RFL.

"The extraordinary lengths to which the SLE and RFL were prepared to go to keep the Broncos afloat is commended and I'm confident that should Wakefield, Halifax, Salford or Castleford suffer a similar misfortune that they will be offered the same level of support.

"When we eventually get into Super League, I for one will neither forgive nor forget yet another vote which went against our club."

Leigh's latest setback follows last year's failed application for Super League when a major objection from SLE and their chairman Chris Caisley scuppered the Centurions' proposals to play a handful of Super League games at Bolton's Reebok Stadium while Hilton Park was brought up to scratch.

Bitter disappointment

Mr Nolan adds: "If there is any consolation from this bitter disappointment, it is that the Virgin Group paid Leigh the compliment of seeking us out as a club worthy to promote their brand ahead of any other club in the country and were prepared to go ahead with the deal until the intervention of SLE and the RFL who informed them under no circumstances would Leigh be allowed to take over the Broncos."