Emerging Nations World Cup

[adamkungl]

I didn't see that RLW article. What did it say??

I'll try post it up later, it was magazine only (not online)

 

[latingringo101]

Article written in the Rugby League Week magazine about the RLIF and the Cancellation of the Emerging Nations World Cup

CRACKS in the Rugby League International Federation (RLIF) have widened following a series of events that bring embarrassment to the game in a World Cup year.

In further signs that rugby league lacks direction and professionalism on a global scale, the following have all taken place in the off-season and pre-season:

· An eleventh hour cancellation of the 2017 Emerging Nations World Cup (ENWC), which was to involve a minimum of 14 developing rugby league organisations from six continents, taking place in western Sydney.

· Three Pacific nations forfeiting their right to play final qualifiers for the Women’s Rugby League World Cup due to scheduling and funding problems.

· RLIF chief executive David Collier admitting he had no knowledge that the Cabramatta International Nines were occurring on January 28, despite a swathe of international teams competing at the 14th running of the event.

· Close to a dozen nations discussing the prospect of forming a breakaway rugby league federation to plug shortfalls in funding, communication and organisation from the RLIF.

The spark to ignite the fuse was an interjection by employees of the 2017 Rugby League World Cup (RLWC) in mid-January that led to the Emerging Nations concept being shelved, despite advanced negotiations.

Indeed journalists were just hours away from being invited to a launch of the 2017 ENWC when an order was sent through to can it.

Participating teams had already pledged a A$1000 bond and begun organising player travel, contracting sponsors and laying out a calendar of events around the proposed tournament, following months of negotiations.

The tournament, which was to be entirely self-funded by volunteer players and officials, had a logo, website and reserved social media handles ready to be rolled out.

Up to a dozen players and officials had agreed to appear at a media launch, including some involved with the NRL, but were told to step down

RLWC powerbrokers contended that the ENWC would undermine their own tournament and subsequently pressured the RLIF by sighting alleged exclusivity deals for a two-month period surrounding the World Cup.

Ultimately the RLIF sided with RLWC officials, causing unrest among the thousands of players and volunteers from developing nations, which already receive minimal funding from the RLIF.

The perceived ‘threat’ came despite the ENWC being held in conjunction with previous incarnations of the World Cup, most successfully in 1995, when the final of the ENWC was held just four days before the RLWC final.

Five of the seven teams that participated in 1995 – USA, Ireland, Scotland, Cook Islands and Russia – have since graduated to appear in fully-fledged World Cups.

Italy, which was another ENWC entrant in 2000, has also stepped up in the intervening period.



It is expected in coming days the RLIF will announce a 2018 Emerging Nations World Cup, which it will promote as better funded and organised.

However, the truth is there was no 2018 plan until the RLWC called for the cancellation of the 2017 tournament.

By 2018 it is expected that some of the 2017 entrants will have walked away from the sport because of a sense of betrayal and a revolt by disappointed players.

The confirmed participants for a 2017 ENWC were Canada, Greece, Hungary, Hong Kong, Philippines, Thailand, Latvia, Malta, Vanuatu and Niue, plus composite teams representing Africa, the Middle East, Scandinavia and Latin America.

Several other nations had also expressed interest – and the door was being left open to expand the format – but they were yet to pay a bond to confirm attendance.

Physical Disability Rugby League teams were also due to appear at the 2017 ENWC.

All games were scheduled to be played at modest stadiums in western Sydney, and were planned so there would be no clash with the two RLWC pool games held in eastern Sydney.

Rugby League Week has seen a volley of emails between burnt officials from developing nations and non-board RLIF representatives who have been caught in the crossfire.

“Without this tournament going ahead around the World Cup we will lose all credibility and our best players,” one European official wrote.

“(We) risk rugby league collapsing altogether here.

“We have identified numerous sponsors we will lose…furthermore we have started talks with our ministry of sports.

“If this tournament does not go ahead we will never be recognised by the government.”

Another representative of an Asian nation wrote:

“We pride ourselves on looking and acting professionally despite being volunteers.

“This decision will make ourselves and yourselves look wholly unprofessional to much-needed sponsors.

“These relationships are hugely important to any sport and particularly rugby league, which is desperately under-commercialised.

“I personally have donated and loaned over £10,000 to get the sport up and running…(and) given man hours that would be charged out in excess of £100,000 if charged at my commercial rate.

“I am now strongly considering the point of committing my time and money to the sport.”

A third official from a prospective Emerging Nations participant, revealed they had already investigated the registration of an independent federation to better protect the interests of developing league regions.

“Most of us don’t currently benefit from the RLIF anyway - never have, never will,” they said.

“The suggestion that RLIF will offer its support and resources in 2018 in my opinion is just lip service.

“The trust has already evaporated. This nonsense has to stop.”

The bone of contention is that the RLIF and RLWC say they had approved a series of ‘one-off’ games by emerging nations, but had no knowledge of the scale to which it had grown.

This is despite a trail of emails stretching back until early November which clearly discussed a multi-pool tournament structure.

RLIF, RLWC and NRL representatives had been included in discussions and briefed about the ENWC on several occasions.

However boss of the RLIF David Collier maintains he was unaware of the scope until mid-January.

“To clarify, the RLIF had approved the request for three or four curtain-raiser matches alongside the World Cup,” Collier said.

“We are delighted there is such interest from so many nations and we look forward to working with the nations to the best interests of all countries.”

Collier was asked if the RLIF would send a representative to the Cabramatta International Nines to inform players the 2017 ENWC had been cancelled, or whether it would be left to individual team officials to break the bad news.

“RLIF was not aware of this (Cabramatta International Nines) and as these are not international matches, I am not sure it is an RLIF matter,” he responded.

The latest revelations follow news that Tonga, Samoa and Fiji walked away from the chance to appear at the 2017 Women’s World Cup.

All three, along with the Cook Islands, had been scheduled to play three back-to-back qualifying games at St Mary’s on a single day last year.

Players were given just weeks to prepare and save funds for travel.

The Cook Islands qualified by default when the other nations withdrew, leaving them in a pool with Australia and England in a six-team tournament.

 

[latingringo101]

I didn't see that RLW article. What did it say??

http://forums.leagueunlimited.com/threads/cracks-showing-within-the-rlif.461669/#post-11996692

 

[DlEHARD]

This is one of the most heartbreaking stories. It is infuriating, the RLIF are a joke and the RLWC corp should be f**king ashamed of themselves. Especially as Sydney barely has any games.

As a co-founder of HKRL and a contributor to the original crowd funding campaign for the ENWC, I am so pissed off.

RLIF have shown themselves to be acting against the interests and spirit of the game.

I wouldnt blame any of our brave internationalists to walk away. They have poisoned the well here.

Got our international advocates together for a Rugby League version of the Red Wedding.

Cue the peasant revolt.

 

[adamkungl]

This is one of the most heartbreaking stories. It is infuriating, the RLIF are a joke and the RLWC corp should be f**king ashamed of themselves. Especially as Sydney barely has any games.

As a co-founder of HKRL and a contributor to the original crowd funding campaign for the ENWC, I am so pissed off.

RLIF have shown themselves to be acting against the interests and spirit of the game.

I wouldnt blame any of our brave internationalists to walk away. They have poisoned the well here.

Got our international advocates together for a Rugby League version of the Red Wedding.

Cue the peasant revolt.

This is obviously not true, some randoms on LU have said the ENWC would just be bunch of fake Sydney teams.

 

[Evil Homer]

This is obviously not true, some randoms on LU have said the ENWC would just be bunch of fake Sydney teams.

At present HKRL is AFAIK an expat-based 9's circuit. Not trying to play down what they're doing at all but again, AFAIK they aren't close to being in a position to be considered for legitimate international competition or RLIF recognition.

Also yet to hear why this competition needs to be RLIF-sanctioned for it to go ahead. One of the Aussie-based guys on a different forum was saying that the RLIF were not ever going to be providing any help or assistance of any kind to the comp, in that case why do you need them to give the green light to do it?

 

[roughyedspud]

This is obviously not true, some randoms on LU have said the ENWC would just be bunch of fake Sydney teams.

Sorry but that's my stance..

And Homer just nailed it

 

[adamkungl]

At present HKRL is AFAIK an expat-based 9's circuit. Not trying to play down what they're doing at all but again, AFAIK they aren't close to being in a position to be considered for legitimate international competition or RLIF recognition.

Also yet to hear why this competition needs to be RLIF-sanctioned for it to go ahead. One of the Aussie-based guys on a different forum was saying that the RLIF were not ever going to be providing any help or assistance of any kind to the comp, in that case why do you need them to give the green light to do it?

I think it would be a poor look and cause more problems than it's worth to hold a large int RL tournament parallel to the WC with the governing body forbidding it.

The premise was to run it in parallel, with RLIF endorsement, and have the two tournaments compliment each other. The EN cup would raise the international credibility of the sport by showcasing a wide range of nations, giving the actual WC a boost.
Playing at the same time as the WC boosts the interest in the EN, which as a mostly amateur comp played in parks/small stadiums would likely struggle to draw as much attention on its own.


Anyway, the 2 threads on this should probably be merged.

 

[Evil Homer]

I think it would be a poor look and cause more problems than it's worth to hold a large int RL tournament parallel to the WC with the governing body forbidding it.

Would it really be a large tournament, or a credible tournament? The fake Italy and Greece teams years ago were derided and laughed at pretty much everywhere apart from Australia and IMO did a lot more harm than good for the sport, and I really don't see how this would be any different TBH. And I mean running parallel to the RLWC would've been nice for the people taking part but in reality it's similar to the ConIFA World Cup asking to run parallel to the FIFA World Cup. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ConIFA_World_Football_Cup

 

[adamkungl]

Would it really be a large tournament, or a credible tournament? The fake Italy and Greece teams years ago were derided and laughed at pretty much everywhere apart from Australia and IMO did a lot more harm than good for the sport, and I really don't see how this would be any different TBH. And I mean running parallel to the RLWC would've been nice for the people taking part but in reality it's similar to the ConIFA World Cup asking to run parallel to the FIFA World Cup. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ConIFA_World_Football_Cup

'Large' in terms of number and range of teams competing, moreso than financially or any other measure.
As credible as the organisers and participants made it.

Look if it turned out to be more Australian heritage teams than not, I'd agree with you. If i was organising the tournament one of the conditions of entry would be domestic quotas, to avoid this very scenario. I don't know if this was the case or not.

I don't think anything the RLIF does can be compared to FIFA, the sheer scale of difference makes any comparison pointless.

 

[latingringo101]

At present HKRL is AFAIK an expat-based 9's circuit. Not trying to play down what they're doing at all but again, AFAIK they aren't close to being in a position to be considered for legitimate international competition or RLIF recognition.

Also yet to hear why this competition needs to be RLIF-sanctioned for it to go ahead. One of the Aussie-based guys on a different forum was saying that the RLIF were not ever going to be providing any help or assistance of any kind to the comp, in that case why do you need them to give the green light to do it?

"RLWC powerbrokers contended that the ENWC would undermine their own tournament and subsequently pressured the RLIF by sighting alleged exclusivity deals for a two-month period surrounding the World Cup"

So basically if anyone tries to organise any kind of RL tournament in the RLWC, they'd be alienated by the RLIF.

 

[latingringo101]

Would it really be a large tournament, or a credible tournament? The fake Italy and Greece teams years ago were derided and laughed at pretty much everywhere apart from Australia and IMO did a lot more harm than good for the sport, and I really don't see how this would be any different TBH. And I mean running parallel to the RLWC would've been nice for the people taking part but in reality it's similar to the ConIFA World Cup asking to run parallel to the FIFA World Cup. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ConIFA_World_Football_Cup

Considering the 2017 ENWC would have had A LOT MORE sovereign nations competing compared to the ConIFA which doesn't i think would have made this one A LOT more credible.

 

[roughyedspud]

"RLWC powerbrokers contended that the ENWC would undermine their own tournament and subsequently pressured the RLIF by sighting alleged exclusivity deals for a two-month period surrounding the World Cup"

So basically if anyone tries to organise any kind of RL tournament in the RLWC, they'd be alienated by the RLIF.

So try and work with the RLIF instead of against it

 

[adamkungl]

So try and work with the RLIF instead of against it

I'm pretty sure they did... until they were backflipped at the last minute

 

[roughyedspud]

Well obviously the RLIF question the validity of some of these teams,understandably too...i know i do

 

[adamkungl]

Well apparently the RLIF are going to fund it next year.
So, as has been pointed out numerous times, the question for them has never been over the validity of teams. It was initially supported knowing full well that some regional teams representing developing nations would participate.
But after the backflip a lot of people are seeing this as lip service, a lot of people developing Rugby League believe the governing body to be unprofessional and untrustworthy.
Only have to look at the womens world cup pacific qualifiers to see their professionalism on display.

 

[Evil Homer]

Well apparently the RLIF are going to fund it next year.
So, as has been pointed out numerous times, the question for them has never been over the validity of teams. It was initially supported knowing full well that some regional teams representing developing nations would participate.
But after the backflip a lot of people are seeing this as lip service, a lot of people developing Rugby League believe the governing body to be unprofessional and untrustworthy.
Only have to look at the womens world cup pacific qualifiers to see their professionalism on display.

They f**ked up by supporting it in the first place and not denying it out right. And if they are funding it in 2018 that's another f**k up because the whole thing is a waste of time and resources.

"RLWC powerbrokers contended that the ENWC would undermine their own tournament and subsequently pressured the RLIF by sighting alleged exclusivity deals for a two-month period surrounding the World Cup"

So basically if anyone tries to organise any kind of RL tournament in the RLWC, they'd be alienated by the RLIF.

I doubt they would care if it was clearly a non-sanctioned tournament featuring Aus-based sides similar to the old Aus-Med Cup. Which realistically is what it would've been all along.

I've said numerous times that the Latin Heat and other Aussie-based 'nations' should never have pretended that they were playing legitimate international matches, never attempted to gain RLIF recognition or even really engaged with the RLIF at all until they were actually able to host legitimate international matches featuring domestic players in the countries in question. I wasn't just saying it to be awkward, this is the reason why, what passes as 'international sport' in Australia will not fly elsewhere and this type of problem was inveitable. If you want to avoid this type of issue in the future then bill your teams accurately as heritage XIIIs, "Aussie Peru" or whatever rather than pretending they are full international sides, which is what I've been saying since the start.

 

[latingringo101]

I've said numerous times that the Latin Heat and other Aussie-based 'nations' should never have pretended that they were playing legitimate international matches, never attempted to gain RLIF recognition or even really engaged with the RLIF at all until they were actually able to host legitimate international matches featuring domestic players in the countries in question. I wasn't just saying it to be awkward, this is the reason why, what passes as 'international sport' in Australia will not fly elsewhere and this type of problem was inveitable. If you want to avoid this type of issue in the future then bill your teams accurately as heritage XIIIs, "Aussie Peru" or whatever rather than pretending they are full international sides, which is what I've been saying since the start

Even though based in Australia, ALL teams have to abide by RLIF rules and regulations which mean players have to be born or have a parent/grandparent born in that area/nation.

Australia is the melting pot of ALL people's from throughout the world. Most have come here due to hardships or for a better life and most players feel passionate when they represent their national team even though they may be on the other side of the world!

A few countries which started the sport thanks to "Australian" teams include Lebanon, Malta, Italy, Greece, Chile, Argentina,Brazil, Vanuatu, Thailand, Solomon Islands, Philippines etc.

They ALL started in predominantly Sydney, however are starting to see domestic development in their mother lands.

The RLIF don't allow WC qualification or membership until domestic development has occurred which most Australian based teams have helped do.

It makes sense for the RLIF to help them out because its a legitimate avenue for International growth.

 

[Evil Homer]

Even though based in Australia, ALL teams have to abide by RLIF rules and regulations which mean players have to be born or have a parent/grandparent born in that area/nation.

Australia is the melting pot of ALL people's from throughout the world. Most have come here due to hardships or for a better life and most players feel passionate when they represent their national team even though they may be on the other side of the world!

A few countries which started the sport thanks to "Australian" teams include Lebanon, Malta, Italy, Greece, Chile, Argentina,Brazil, Vanuatu, Thailand, Solomon Islands, Philippines etc.

They ALL started in predominantly Sydney, however are starting to see domestic development in their mother lands.

The RLIF don't allow WC qualification or membership until domestic development has occurred which most Australian based teams have helped do.

It makes sense for the RLIF to help them out because its a legitimate avenue for International growth.

I'm not saying it's not, I'm not denying or questioning what you're doing at all, you don't need to defend the Latin Heat concept to me, I'm fully behind it. But playing matches in Australia with teams entirely consisting of people who were born or live in Australia is not legit international sport whichever way you look at it. Even if they meet RLIF eligibility criteria, which I'm not denying they do, these are not real international teams, they are representative teams made up of Aussie expats. I'm not sure if you legitimately don't understand this concept or are just deliberately trying to deny it but if you want to avoid being shit on in this way in the future then, once again, I suggest you start billing these teams accurately as heritage/representative teams rather than pretending they are legit national teams. The same goes for the likes of Philippines and Thailand too.

 

[latingringo101]

I'm not saying it's not, I'm not denying or questioning what you're doing at all, you don't need to defend the Latin Heat concept to me, I'm fully behind it. But playing matches in Australia with teams entirely consisting of people who were born or live in Australia is not legit international sport whichever way you look at it. Even if they meet RLIF eligibility criteria, which I'm not denying they do, these are not real international teams, they are representative teams made up of Aussie expats. I'm not sure if you legitimately don't understand this concept or are just deliberately trying to deny it but if you want to avoid being shit on in this way in the future then, once again, I suggest you start billing these teams accurately as heritage/representative teams rather than pretending they are legit national teams. The same goes for the likes of Philippines and Thailand too.

You are right to some degree. There are representative teams who "claim" to be representing an international region, but do NOTHING back in the motherland. They are more or less an ex pat 'boys club'.

The RLIF/RLEF and Rugby League wouldn't be in HALF of the countries it is now if it wasn't for International Teams first playing in Australia. The RLIF have allowed Full International matches in Australia before because;

1) They know those teams are legitimate International teams within RLIF rules and regulations.

&

2) Their organisations are 100% legitimate and attempting to grow the sport in their retrospective countries.

Latin Heat (as previously mentioned) have players who come from or have parents who escaped civil wars, famine or hard ships and come to Australia for a better life. By representing their nation they make their families proud and often can speak their mother tongue.
We've even had players go back to Latin American countries such as Chile, Argentina and Colombia and help spread the game there.

So if you think our team is "just a bunch of expat Aussies" then i'm afraid that's not 100% accurate. We've got coaches who were born in Latin America and help coach our various international teams, players who have come to Australia to study and played for our teams and even players who have escaped Civil War and representing the country which they escaped from years ago.

The reason we (LH) go to the RLIF and hope we get recognition for our work (International rankings, points etc) is so we feel we are rewarded for our efforts. I believe that if you are trying to spead International Rugby League (however that may be) then the International Federation should recognize that.

We've ALWAYS made clear our intentions to grow the game in Latin America, so if we have International games in Australia why is it so bad if they are considered Full Internationals? If we weren't trying to do things domestically then yes your have a point, but if you have legitimate ambitions to grow the game in the motherland then you SHOULD be rewarded for that.