Wakefield Trinity will replace London Broncos in Super League for 2025 having been awarded Grade A status as part of a restructure of rugby league starting next season.

The 2024 Championship Grand Final winners are among nine clubs – St Helens, Wigan, Leeds, Warrington, Hull KR, Catalans, Leigh and Castleford – to receive Grade A status.

Hull FC, Huddersfield and Salford received the highest B gradings in order to complete the 12-team Super League next season, with Toulouse and London narrowly missing out on the top 12.

Clubs have been graded under media giant IMG and Rugby League Commercial’s ‘Reimagining Rugby League’ initiative.

Clubs in Super League, the Championship and League One have been graded based on points calculated for on and off-field performance in order to decide who will make up the top flight in 2025, rather than promotion and relegation between the divisions.

They will then be regraded next season, giving clubs chance to improve their ranking to earn a spot in a higher division.

London, promoted to the top flight for 2024 having beaten Toulouse in the 2023 Championship Grand Final, were ranked 24th in 2023’s initial IMG gradings, meaning they were likely to only spend one season in Super League.

But they moved up to 10 places to 14th and missed out on retaining their place by just over a point.

Clubs in the top three tiers of British rugby league voted in favour of IMG’s proposed club grading in April 2023.

The Rugby Football League (RFL) said the change aimed to “incentivise clubs to grow their fanbase and top-line non-centralised revenue, to better engage with fans, to be run in a best-in-class way, to invest in their club and the sport in a sustainable way, and to ensure strong governance”.

The change, which is the biggest transformation of rugby league for a generation, generated criticism, however.

London Broncos owner David Hughes expressed his concerns before the start of the 2024 season as the then-newly-promoted Super League club began the campaign seemingly certain to be relegated back to the Championship for 2025.

Broncos were ranked 24th in 2023’s illustrative gradings – 4.38 points short of the top 12 – meaning that an extraordinary finish would have been necessary to even come close to retaining their top-flight place.

In the end, despite outperforming expectations and coming close to finishing above Hull FC on points difference, the Broncos finished bottom of Super League and Hughes put the club up for sale.

With no parachute payment for being relegated, the Broncos said last week that they need to raise £350,000 in the next month to ensure their survival next term.

More to follow.