Why did the Italian bodies split?

[Rodney]

I've been hearing of activity of from both sides but I haven't heard much about what caused the initial split.
Can someone explain why there are two rival bodies?

 

[roughyedspud]

A long time ago in a galaxy far,far away........

 

[DlEHARD]

It was all over the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand.

 

[deal.with.it]

Mussolini thought it was a good idea

 

[miguel de cervantes]

Because there is this strange innate phenomenon in rugby league administration that leads to schisms. It's almost as if the original instigators after their initial split in 1895 with the rugby union have just kept reproducing and splitting throughout the generations as the gene has been passed down.

The Super League war, the USA, Italy, Thailand administrations, various international and club factions, differing rule interpretations and endless squabbles about what should be done and how it should be done and with whos money. The game has always lacked the cohesion by those administering it to go foward, and yet it seems to hobble foward thanks to itself and in spite of those running it.

Contrast this with rugby union that seems to have bound foward in spite of the game and thanks to those administering it.

 

[CQ Italia]

I've lost track how many times I've had to explain this. But..

Basically large difference and disagreements on development. The official body have existed via their Sydney foundations since 1993, it took until 2006 to play in Italy and the FIRL was officially founded in Italy... They had 2/3 teams in 2010. At that stage their domestic focus was very little and also it didn't help one of the team's basically used players from another team without consulting the 3 foundation clubs in the central/southern zone. Those in the north had little interest in the 3 clubs that were started in central/south.
Leadership and democratic issues were originally raised also. Really looking back they could have waited it out and voted in a new leader, but 5 years on I think the results are slowly speaking for themselves.
Also FIRFL (breakaway) wants largely domestic players in the national team. There was also a time where FIRL faked some injuries with domestic players and brought in heritage players as replacements in a development tournament.
Really there are other small and big issues over time that I won;t go into.

FIRFL (the breakaway) have had almost 4,000 total participants/members. The championship last year had 9 clubs (excludes coppa italia teams and development teams) from north to south (most league nations just focus on a couple of regions).
This year from 2 of the 3 coppa italia regional qualifiers 7 teams have played, with Sicily to come (could bring it to 12+ and majority are different to Championship clubs).

Tuscany had 8 different clubs participate in their coppa italia day yesterday (4 senior coppa italia teams, 3 other teams played both u8 and u10 matches, magnifici firenze RL (a dual campionato & coppa club) also played an u18 match vs firenze rugby

They now have clubs from Mantova in the north down to Syracuse in south-east Sicily (1300+ km)

 

[CQ Italia]

What hasn't helped patching things up is some FIRL members have tried 'poaching' FIRFL clubs, whereas FIRFL hasn't did that. Also FIRFL offered their players the first year as long as they were named under the firfl teams, only for them to be named under firl teams and no longer associated to firfl (promise national team spots is fair enough...)

While there have been a large number of times legal action by some FIRL members has been threatened... just because of press releases and having the breakaway.

Seriously, just because I was involved in coaching/playing for the International XIII v Italy/FIRFL team over there attempts were made by someone connected via their Sydney Italian based to get myself banned under the Queensland Rugby League (I was registered)... Pettiness really... A Serbian RL player also was included.

So basically the divide between federations can not be larger now. I think it wasn't controlled by RL officials as well as it could have been, but I won't go into that as it's nearly 5 years since the split

 

[Rodney]

ok, thanks for the insight