Rugby League - Rugby League Worldwide

Rugby League Worldwide

Rugby league is played in over 30 nations throughout the world, 27 are ranked by the RLIF and a further 11 are unranked. The strongest rugby league nations are Australia, England and New Zealand. The Rugby League World Cup is the highest form of representative rugby league and currently features 14 teams (ordered by RLIF rank) (1) Australia, (2) New Zealand, (3) England, (4) Papua New Guinea, (5) France, (6) Wales, (7) Fiji, (8) Samoa, (9) Tonga, (10) Scotland, (11) USA, (12) Ireland, (13) Italy and (16) Cook Islands. (14) Lebanon, (17) Russia and (22) South Africa have previously contested in World Cups. The current World Champions are New Zealand, who won the 2008 Rugby League World Cup. Prior to this, Australia had won every World Cup since 1975.

The game is particularly popular in the nations of the South Pacific. Rugby league is the most watched sport on television in Australia and neighbouring Papua New Guinea is the only country to have rugby league as its national sport. This has led to officials from that country lobbying to have a team admitted to the National Rugby League, Australia's elite club competition which also features a team from Auckland, New Zealand's biggest city. The popularity of the code in New Zealand has led to the possibility of another team from the South Island entering the competition as well. Rugby league is the dominant winter sport in the eastern Australian states of New South Wales, Queensland and Australian Capital Territory, The game is also amongst the predominant sports of Tonga and is played in other Pacific nations such as Samoa and the Cook Islands. In Australia, and indeed the rest of the region, the annual State of Origin series ranks among the most popular sporting events.

The Rugby League European Federation are responsible for developing rugby league in Europe and the Northern Hemisphere, while the Asia Pacific Rugby League Confederation are responsible for developing rugby league in the Asia-Pacific region. The Rugby League European Cup and Rugby League Pacific Cup are both run by the RLEF and APRLC respectively and are used as a stepping stone to the Rugby League Four Nations with Australia, New Zealand and England, the fourth team being decided by who wins the Pacific and European Cup, and rotates each year from Europe to the Pacific.

In England, rugby league has traditionally been associated with the northern counties of Yorkshire, Lancashire and Cumbria where the game originated, although its popularity has also increased elsewhere. Currently, two of the fourteen Super League teams are based outside of these traditional counties: London Broncos and Catalans Dragons. Figures published by the Rugby Football League showed an 81% increase in women playing the sport in the twelve months prior to October 2008, as well as an increase in juniors of both genders nationwide. Over 40,000 players were registered by the RFL as of October 2008 with an overall participation rate in the game doubling in the last four years to well over 285,000 by late 2009.

France first played rugby league as late as 1934, where in the five years prior to World War II, the sport's popularity increased as Frenchmen became disenchanted with the state of French rugby union in the 1930s. However, after the Allied Forces were defeated by Germany in June 1940, the Vichy regime in the south seized assets belonging to rugby league authorities and clubs and banned the sport for its association with the left-wing Popular Front government that had governed France before the War. The sport was unbanned after the Liberation of Paris in August 1944 and the collapse of the Vichy regime, although it was still actively marginalised by the French authorities until the 1990s. Despite this, the national side appeared in the finals of the 1954 and 1968 World Cups, and the country hosted the 1954 event. In 1996, a French team, Paris Saint-Germain was one of eleven teams which formed the new European Super League, although the club was dissolved in 1997 due to its failure to run at a profit and poor attendances. In 2006, the Super League admitted the Catalans Dragons, a team from Perpignan in the southern Languedoc-Roussillon region. They have subsequently reached the 2007 Challenge Cup Final and made the play-offs of the 2008 Super League XIII season. The success of the 'Dragons' in Super League has initiated a renaissance in French rugby league, with new-found enthusiasm for the sport in the south of the country where most of the Elite One Championship teams are based.

The early 21st century has seen other countries take up the game and compete in international rugby league with efforts being made by the Rugby League European Federation to expand the game to new areas such as Germany, Sweden, Norway and Hungary.