St Helens coach Kristian Woolf has told Penrith to put their money where their mouth is if they are serious about hosting a resurrected World Club Challenge.
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Panthers chief executive Brian Fletcher indicated last week that his club, who have never been crowned world champions, were only interested in participating in the match if the reigning Super League champions flew to Australia.
The Penrith boss also said his club had no interest in heading to England to compete for the trophy which was last contested by St Helens and the Sydney Roosters in February 2020.
But Woolf said that despite all the speculation, Saints were yet to see any concrete proposal on how that might work.
"There's been no official conversation whatsoever other than a couple of throwaway lines in the media," Woolf told AAP.
"It's another one that I found quite amusing to be honest. It's quite easy to throw out things in the media.
"But from our point of view there's been no formal approach or discussions about if a game were to be played in Australia, how that would be funded or how it would fit in with the Super League schedule.
"If people are serious I'm sure our CEO, Mike Rush, would love to hear from them."
Under the current set-up, the Super League clubs pay the NRL premiers to travel to the UK, but the favour is not returned in the other direction.
Of the past 10 World Club Challenges, only Melbourne's win over Leeds in 2018 and the Roosters victory against Wigan in 2014 were contested in Australia.
The concept has not been held since the pandemic, with Woolf, who has won two Super League titles in as many seasons at Saints, saying it worked in Penrith's favour if they were to travel to the UK.
"You've got to consider that the hosting clubs fork out the best part of $300,000 for the Australian club to come," Woolf said.
"On top of that the other Super League clubs are putting in $100,000.
"Those Australian clubs are being remunerated in the vicinity of $400,000 to make the trip over here and to make it financially viable for them.
"There's been no discussions how that would happen or how it might happen in return if we were to go to Australia.
"We've already got an extremely congested fixture list which starts on February 10 and if you win the competition you might play 34 games."
The NRL holds a 14-13 lead over the Super League in the history of the World Club Challenge, with Wigan the last Super League side to win when they beat Cronulla in 2017.
Australian Associated Press
