With the league world cup on us soon, what is the state of international rugby league? I have been looking at the game around the globe to see where it is heading.
I am not including the 10 teams that will participate in the cup but the other nations. Any comments are most welcome. This is not a definitive statement but an overview and a couple of predictions.
Starting with Africa, only two nations have embraced league. In South Africa, the game has been established for 21 years and has 16 teams playing at present. The final was played in February. However, there was no money to send the Rhinos to the USA to take part in the world cup elimination games. The Rhinos hope to tour UK later this year and are asking for sponsors and donations so that the tour can proceed.
In the 1990s, there was a five team comp on Morocco but it soon folded. There is currently a Morocco RL which is based in France and try to get some friendlies against local teams.
Probably the most successful league country is Lebanon where there is a healthy five team comp. It is up to round 15 this year but has been suspended due to the renewed violence. As soon as peace is restored, the series will be resumed.
In both the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, an interest in league has surfaced. A four team comp is about to start in Dubai and information has been sent to Jeddah for the game to commence.
The USA has played league for 10 years and has a small but vocal following. The 10 clubs that contest the competition are all based along the east coast, mainly in the north east, Washington DC and a team in Florida. The tomahawks gave the Kangaroos a fright a few seasons ago. Australia’s David Niu has been the backbone of US league since it was founded.
A Canadian team once played a couple of games in the US but has since closed. In Argentina, league was formed to play the Australian Police in 2005 but it never took hold. The West Indies league was formed in 2005 and has a five team comp based mainly in Jamaica. It was to be part of the RLWC 2008 but had to withdraw from the preliminaries because of lack of funds.
However, it is in Europe where the strength of league is. Outside of France, the biggest is Russia. The Russian RL was formed in 1990 by Eduard and Igor Taturian, who coming out of the Soviet era, wanted professional Rugby and so dragged clubs and players from the then amateur Russian Rugby Federation. It started well but fell away until about 2000 when Akhmet Kamaldinov, a newspaper and casino owner took over the finances. The game prospered and a 10 team national comp was played. An internal argument in 2005 caused Kamaldinov to resign and it has been downhill from then. Some juniors now play in the Rugby comp as do senior clubs in the sevens. There is current talk that the glamour team, Kazan Arrows will switch to Rugby and that would be the ruin of Russian league.
One team from Ukraine plays in the Russian league. League was played in Moldova several years ago and any good players have gone to Russian clubs.
Serbia played league for 15 years from 1953 to 1968 but turned to Rugby when Yugoslavia wanted to enter the European Rugby competition. In 2001, after the Yugoslav breakup, league was reformed and a strong six team comp is now established. It is the next strongest nation in Europe.
Elsewhere in Europe, league starts their season in June. This is twofold, so as not the clash with the Rugby playing season and to attract Rugby players whose season has just finished. The entire Georgian Rugby team switched to league last year to enter the RLWC after playing in the RWC but the RLIF banned them because there was no club infrastructure in the country.
The Netherland RL have a four team setup but the RLEF has suspended then until the administration is put in order. Based in the Rheinland, the German RL is growing in strength. and has six clubs. The Czech Republic boasts a strong junior connection and a junior development officer has been appointed by the RLIF. There is a movement to get league started in Italy this month and already a round robin international series between Germany, Czech Republic and Italy has been scheduled.
A keen Englishman, John Slade, has introduced league to Estonia. He is concentrating on schools and juniors and has one senior club, the Tallinn Tigers who play visiting naval ships. Nonetheless, he has organised a round robin tournament between Estonia, Latvia and Ukraine. Coaches have been sent from UK to teach the game to Latvia.
Interest has been shown in Norway and Sweden but so far no matches have taken place.
There is a Maltese RL, Greek RL and Portuguese RL but these are all Australian based groups. League games have been staged in Greece and Malta but nothing of a lasting nature ensued.
Is there a future for global league or will it remain, in essence an insular backwater?
Recommend this story.
- Explore:
June 2nd 2008 @ 10:10am
Treizistes said | June 2nd 2008 @ 10:10am | Report comment
I’ll get in before the usual guys do and say, no, Rugby League is not played in any of those countries, International Rugby League is dead before it was even alive.
Now that’s out of the way, I’d say Wales would be the Strongest out of the lot and they somehow missed out on making the RLWC.
There are plenty of Pac Island teams who didn’t make the WC that have been playing for years.
I noticed in the RL blog at the times that the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia would be joined by Pakistan this year, it seems that that part of the world might take a liking to the running tackling handling game and if these countries do start playing, that will be brilliant for the developement of Lebanon who would love to have a few close neighbors playing the same.
The Russians need to get rid of the bloke who is running or ruining the game over there, the 10 teams they have all play in the top grade, under this though, there are teams who play in a different comp, they get to join the others in their version of the CC, the cup of Russia.
The problem over there is the bloke in charge and the fact that the Russians don’t like to look outside their own country for decent coaches, if they could pay some former top coaches to go over there and show them how it’s done, things would pick up in no time, I read a Russian newspaper late last year that stated there are around 10,000 players over there, so that’s a decent base to start with, if only they could get the people in to go over everything and fix it up.
Another big reason why Russia are not moving forward faster is the fact the same fella who runs the comp, lets 1 team buy all the top players and lets the other rot, you often see every week 1 team scoring around 70-90 points and hardly any points against, no comp will move forward in any sport if you have 1 dominant team flogging everyone, it must be disheartening for the other players to be whipped week in week out.
There are other countries playing over there like Kazakhstan, but it’s hard to get any info about them.
I thought the Greek local comp was supposed to kick off this year as they have been playing the South Africans last year and this year plus Barla from the UK?
Last I heard about South Africa, they were supposed to have 22 senior sides now and more wanting to join, there are a few threads at a couple of RL sites that mentioned it this year.
Serbia is doing well, they have the 6 club teams now and they also have 3 or 4 University teams playing this year.
The West Indies had a new team join this year and in a thread at League Unlimited, there was talk about the game being taken too 1 or 2 of the other islands over there very shortly.
The Usa has just had another team formed who played a few weeks ago against the Jacksonville Axemen, they might be able to get things right to join the AMNRL next year or the year after, again at LU, there is a thread about them, they are called the Bradenton Bulldogs, I think thats in Florida, not sure.
They had a nice report in their local newspaper about it and said a couple of hundred turned up to watch the match.
I read a report a month or two ago about the Les Catalans Dragons from France helping out some teams in Spain, could be something happening there as well.
It seems to me the RLEF are doing their bit for RL in Europe and the North Americans are doing it themselves, I want to know what the ARL or RLIF are doing for the game in the Pacific and Asia, maybe we’ll find out if they make some decent money from the RLWC this year.
I can see a decent future for RL around the world, it probably will never be massive, but you never know, stranger things have happened and the good thing about the code we love is the fact most countries play Soccer, so there is never an excuse about grounds as they play on the same type and it doesn’t take much to get those Soccer Rugby posts put in.
Good article, instead of all the doom and gloom of the Australian newspapers, it’s refreshing to read some positive stuff, well done and good on you for stating the truth and not writing a heap of spin to make is sound better.
June 2nd 2008 @ 1:11pm
True Tah said | June 2nd 2008 @ 1:11pm | Report comment
Harry Kimble, no league will not remain an insular backwater.
We had a test match that attracted 34,000 a few weeks ago. A proper World Cup is going to be held in Australia, and dont let any other codes try to say that it is not a World Cup – as no country has a mortgage on their premier comp being a “World Cup”. I think the games in Queensland will be well attended, and having the games involving the Pacific Island sides out at Penrith will help fill those stadiums – good to see that Samoa can call on a stack of ex-Kiwis for their game!
Look at the growth of the game in Lebanon and Russia, whilst the game starting up in Lebanon is due to the passion of the Aussie Lebanese rugby league community, the fact it is there is amazing.
There needs to be more work in PNG – what surprises me is that when I compare PNG in league to Fiji/Tonga/Samoa in rugby union, there are far more of the latter than the former playing professionally throughout the world, despite PNG having at least 4 times the population – and they are massive league followers to boot! No doubt there are hundreds more potential Marcus Bai’s running around in the Highlands.
There is a lot of work for rugby league to grow, but so has rugby union, cricket, baseball, any other sport other than soccer – fact is these games are more complicated and require some degree of knowledge passing – all soccer involves is kicking a ball into a net, how hard can that be to understand?
You talk about South African league – I remember reading about a South African side that toured Australia and NZ in the 1960s, they were smashed by Australia, but actually beat the Kiwis!
June 2nd 2008 @ 6:54pm
mtngry said | June 2nd 2008 @ 6:54pm | Report comment
I would like to mention Asia’s number 1 RL team. The Japan Samurais. League was started in Japan 10-15 years ago by a guy called Max. they went to emerging nations World cup, but they hooked up with super league, and after te war were forgotten.
When I was in Japan about 5 years ago, we had a three team comp in In Tokyo, Tokyo Warriors, East Japan Bulldogs ( mostly foreigners) and Saitama fight who contested the Saitama or frontier cup. (As well as a team based in Kagoshima. )
The comp was held in Winter ( as no rugby grounds were available during the RU seasons of Autumn and spring) and occasonally other union teams ( Mostley Gaijin/foreigners e.g. YCAC or Tokyo Crusaders. Tokyo all france) would play them.
I myself toured with the Japanese national team to the USA in 2004, who quite frankly are the only regular international comp the JRL gets and we are grateful for it, they always put on a good welcome. We lost that game, but in the North pacific club championship, (Kagoshima Broncos v New York Knights) the Japanese club champions got up.
These days I am in contact with the JRL boys through their website and facebook groups. I ran water for them at the International 9s in cabramatta this year. they still play USA and get some games in Australia, e.g. Portugal ( oz based) and NSW tertiary students but really need a lot more competition. In Japan there is really only the Tokyo Warriors left, but they are doing a lot, introducing oz tag and playing teams such as Tokyou gaijin when they can.
Hopefully they will be here again in October for a game against Portugal or NSW tertiary again, (and to see the RLWC) and back for the international 9s next year.
In the rest of Asia, Singapore had a team for a while, Have not heard much of that comp for a while.
And as for WORLD CUP… Rugby Union tends to forget that the RLWC predates the RUWC by a good 30 years.
June 2nd 2008 @ 10:16pm
Sledgeandhammer said | June 2nd 2008 @ 10:16pm | Report comment
If league wants credibility internationally they need to have an international federation driving the process, similar to IRB or FIFA, and not have ARL running the show. They will also have to stop parachuting Australian players into national teams and let the grass roots grow. In all honesty I think the growth in international rugby has been huge over the past 8 years, largely driven by the world cup and the IRB creating new second tier competitions, funding, and top class coaches to teams in South America, Africa and Europe. The real growth of union in Europe and to some extent Africa (North & West) was driven by the French (FIRA), so if league can make France strong they will have far greater influence around the world.
June 3rd 2008 @ 8:56am
Treizistes said | June 3rd 2008 @ 8:56am | Report comment
France are slowly coming out of the wilderness now with Les catalans doing well, we’ll soon see how far they have come when they play England later this month in Toulouse before getting ready for the WC.
A few of the old clubs that were asleep as the French say are starting to come back, and the juniors have grown another 20% on last year where they got back up to 27,000+, so a good 30,000+ RL players over there now, at one stage before Les Catalans got the go ahead, the juniors dropped to around 7,000, so in 3 years it’s grown heaps.
mtngry :
Good to hear the Japanese are still playing the game, even if it is Oz tag and the occasional match against someone prepared to give it a go.
June 3rd 2008 @ 9:02am
Treizistes said | June 3rd 2008 @ 9:02am | Report comment
Sledgeandhammer
The ARL doesn’t run everything, only Australia.
NZ has the NZRL
PNGRL run their own game
Rugby League has the RLIF – Rugby League International Federation.
In England the RFL run the game.
In France it’s the FFR X111
Above those European Federations is the RLEF – Rugby League European Federation.
They all fall under the Rugby League International Federation.
June 3rd 2008 @ 4:03pm
Lazza said | June 3rd 2008 @ 4:03pm | Report comment
“all soccer involves is kicking a ball into a net, how hard can that be to understand?”
There you go lads, $300,000 per week just for kicking a ball into the net? You’re playing the wrong game.
June 3rd 2008 @ 10:54pm
Sledgeandhammer said | June 3rd 2008 @ 10:54pm | Report comment
Hi Treizistes, you are right and I expected that reply. I don’t know the exact set up, but my impression is the ARL has a very big influence. Another point I would make is that you should be more concerned with quality than quantity. You can have a strong level of competition in a small player market, and conversely have a poor level of competition with high levels of participation. 30k is more than enough players to generate a strong national squad, if the structures are there.
June 4th 2008 @ 3:21am
Treizistes said | June 4th 2008 @ 3:21am | Report comment
Yep you are right sledgeandhammer, over the last couple of years, things have picked up in certain countries like France and the UK with some smaller places doing very well, but then there are others who make your head spin if you think about them too hard.
The ARL haven’t been able to do anything for RL outside Australia since the SL war soaked up all their money, I take that back sorry, they are able to help PNG out, but that’s it.
This wc is crucial for the ARL to make money so it can get back on its feet again and become more of a force in the NRL/ARL partnership.
June 4th 2008 @ 10:54am
mtngry said | June 4th 2008 @ 10:54am | Report comment
I have always had the impression that RL in Australia is run by the clubs, not by the ARL.
And internationally the RLIF has nowhere near the clout of, e.g. the IRB or FIFA.
You very rarely see on the ARL website anything about the ARL doing anything for anyone, except the ARL.
And that does not even extend to trying to re-establish RL in the rest of Australia.. anyone remember the
Western Reds?
Again, this is just an impression, but the impression is, other sports are doing a lot more.