Penrith Panthers CEO Matt Cameron admits he has been trading emails with his Wigan Warriors counterpart Kris Radlinski but the Panthers are no closer to finding a World Club Challenge solution.

Wigan have already made their desire to take on NRL winners Penrith next year and they are willing to explore a number of avenues to make it happen. However, the schedule is complicated by commitments in Las Vegas, with both teams set to travel to the States to play a competitive fixture.

With such travelling involved, finding the time to play the World Club Challenge is proving tricky. Penrith superstar Nathan Cleary outlined an idea that Wigan could travel to Australia to take on the Panthers as part of the NRL’s Magic Round.

Cameron, though, has ruled out the idea, with the CEO claiming the club already have commitments with the NRL and certain opponents over the next few years, which ensure Cleary’s idea cannot come to fruition.

“There’s a commercial arrangement that’s already in place with the NRL for the next three years with the home team at Brisbane,” Cameron said on James Graham’s The Bye Round podcast. “There’s a commercial arrangement to play there against a certain opponent.

“I’ve been trading emails with Kris Radlinski overnight and the window is just so small for us. With mandated leave, which rolls into mandated training periods before you can play, the window to play that game, complicated by Vegas being like round zero.

“We’ve been looking at it and is there a way we can do it. From Penrith’s point of view, Kris is keen to get it on, but from the Panthers’ point of view, we’re just really struggling at the moment to see where it fits in the schedule based on all the other requirements that we’ve got.

“This will be the fifth pre-season in a row that we’ve started late, so our decision is more about player wellbeing than anything. It’s the fifth year in a row that we have players coming back on January 1 and we’re expecting them to play, in this instance, a Grand Final in the second week in February.”