Major Castleford Tigers IMG grading hint dropped as score update provided

Prospective new Castleford Tigers owner Martin Jepson has dropped a clear hint over the club’s final IMG score ahead of the revealing of the gradings for 2025 next week.

Jepson has an option agreement in place to purchase the shares owned by the Fulton family before January next year, which would make him the club’s majority shareholder with over 95 per cent of the Tigers‘ shares.

He has invested a significant sum to bring the Tigers up to standard off the field and ensure they comply with IMG’s gradings criteria, removing any doubt over whether they will be in Super League in 2025.

And Jepson has stressed in an interview with the club that he wouldn’t have agreed the deal had he not been confident Castleford have done enough to make the cut when the gradings are announced next Wednesday.

“My focus was to secure our standing under IMG,” he said.

“Gradings get released next week and I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t have a fairly confident view we wouldn’t be a Super League team. There was a lot of speculation at the time that we wouldn’t, but gratitude to Mark Grattan, who has spent a lot of time in the weeds of the IMG system. I’m fairly confident that would be a success for us.”

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Jepson told Love Rugby League earlier this year that he felt there was ‘every possibility’ the Tigers could secure Grade A status this year: and Love Rugby League understands the Tigers are incredibly close to that mark and could indeed surpass it next Wednesday.

That would assure them of a place in Super League no matter what – but Jepson has promised Tigers supporters he remains committed to building a competitive team on the field to ensure they merit their place among the elite.

“I was personally committed to making sure that irrespective of the IMG rankings, we didn’t finish bottom of the league so there could be no question that we only stayed in because we spent the money wisely to work the system,” he said. “Fortunately we never got dragged into the battle of the bottom two.”

Jepson also revealed that the club expect to unveil a number of new signings ‘very shortly’. The likes of Parramatta Eels half-back Daejarn Asi have been linked with Craig Lingard’s side for 2025.

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