The RLEF

Courier

Issue 7 February 2009: coming to a country near you! www.rlef.eu.com

This Edition

• Rugby League in on the up • Russia to get live games • Progress made in UAE

• Improved television coverage in France

The game in Wales is in understandably rude health at the moment after Celtic Crusaders first engage Super League campaign began against defending champions Leeds Rhinos on Friday 6 th February

At a dinner held by the Welsh Assembly in late January to laud the club’s debut RLEF chairman Richard Lewis highlighted the strong position in which Welsh rugby league finds itself, citing:

• A record numbers of participants in local

schools and colleges rugby league, and in

the Carnegie Champions Schools

competition

• team’s Four Nations triumph

• Wales Under 18’s European

Championships victory • the Welsh students reaching the semi- finals of the Student • The Crusaders Colts victory in the Co- Crusader Colts lift the RLC National trophy operative Rugby League Conference

National in their first season

Bridgend College will represent Wales in the last 16 of the national Carnegie Champions Colleges tournament after seeing off the challenge of four local rivals at Ysgol Gyfun Llanhari on 28 th January.

WRL officials have hailed the day’s competition as one of the best on record in the Principality. For the first time in history Russia’s rugby league fans can enjoy engage Super League matches broadcast live by one of the most

popular Russian channels - "NTV Plus Sport". Russian players and

fans have craved long enough to this opportunity.

In Tatarstan (one of the republics of the Russian Federation) the

Open U12 Cup took place in Kazan on the 12th-14th of December.

There were seven teams representing all major Russian rugby league

clubs (three from Moscow, two from Kazan, one from St.Petersburg

and one from Pensa). Home side "Dinamo-Energy" (pictured) were

the Winners.

Dinamo-Energy, winners of the Open U12 Cup in Kazan

Paperwork has been submitted to UAE government to legally operate as a sporting entity (rules governing sports administration in the UAE are slightly different to those in Europe) and a five-man board as well as a constitution will be lodged with the RLEF in February.

UAE development manager Sol Mokdad has also opened negotiations with Dubai Sports City – the emirate’s stunning new multi-sport venue - concerning housing UAE RL’s headquarters there.

On the field, March will see a ‘Super9s’ contested by up to eight teams; in May there is the possibility of the UAE playing a representative fixture against a combined India-Pakistan team; but the principal target of Mokdad and his team is to kick off a 12-week UAE championship in October, contested by four teams.

Finally, Canterbury has agreed to sponsor the Gulf state’s national side. In a major coup for the game in France, mobile phone company Orange’s ADSL sports channel will take over from Sport + as the game’s exclusive broadcaster.

In a three-year deal, Orange TV will show the Super League, the Quad Nations and the 2010 European Nations Cup, which will feature Les Bleus.

Production will also be enhanced, with a greater number of cameras to meet international standards.

John Monie’s successor as national team coach will be announced this month by the FFRXIII. The shortlist is down to three English and Australian candidates.

The SRLF conducted a match officials seminar in January, led by educator Haris Dajc, which qualified a further 25 match officials in the Balkan nation.

Jagodina also joined rugby league’s ranks with the formation of a club, the brainchild of former Serbia captain and coach, Marko Jankovic, who hails from that city.

Jagodina will join the other Serbian clubs in their pre- season activities commencing 15 January.

The Bank of Beirut Championship has reached its midway mark, with LAU Immortals and Jounieh Al-Galacticos the front-runners.

Surprise package USJ Saints are in third and look like the only side capable of upsetting last season’s finalists.

In development news the LRLC has requested from the Ministry of Youth and Sport use of Tripoli’s Olympic Stadium every other Thursday until the end of the school year in June to stage regular tournaments.

The KSA, which saw its first organized rugby league in late 2008, will join forces with a Gulf neighbour in March to continue the push to spread the sport in the Middle

East.

The Jeddah-based schools - Jeddah Prep & Grammar School, British International School Jeddah and the American International School Jeddah – will play four Qatari schools in Doha in a day’s nines tournament.

Discussion are underway with the LRLC in Beirut to host a Lebanon Under-16s side in Jeddah in June. The Qatar schools set to play the tourists are: the Al Khor International School, Doha College, Qatar International School and the Gulf English School.

These same four schools will play each other in a domestic 9s tournament at Doha College on 22 February to prepare themselves for the visit of the Saudis.

March’s tournament will be attended by RLEF Euro Med Director of Development Danny Kazandjian, who is attempting to stimulate official interest in rugby league from the QOC.

On 27 January Kazandjian met with Palestinian Authority sports official Mohammed Zeidani in the Al-Buss refugee camp in Sour, south Lebanon.

Zeidani agreed to begin development of a Palestinian team and create a federation, mandated by the sports minister in the West Bank, along the lines of the Fifa- and IOC- recognised Palestinian organisations.

Qualified Palestinian coaches are currently discussing the possibility of introducing rugby league into the UN schools system.

Champions Eagles became the first ever Scottish side to qualify for the second round of the when they produced the upset of the first round to defeat the RAF 18-16 on 25 January.

On the administrative front the SRL is set to appoint a business development manager who will have a wide ranging remit to strengthen the code north of the English border.

Greece witnessed its first game of rugby league featuring only domestic players at Kremasti, Rhodes, on 23 November, with the Southern Rhodes Magpies narrow winners over the Kremasti Crows.

These two clubs will join others in a regular build-up of activity that has so far been on a weekly, if informal, basis on the field.

The RLEF assisted the Greeks with a cache of equipment.

At least five teams are preparing for the first ever Ukrainian Championship which should kick-off at the end of April or the beginning of May.

The clubs are: "Legion XIII" from Kharkiv; “Varyagi" and "Tigers" from Donetsk (one of Ukraine’s biggest cities); "Gornyaki" from Lugansk and one or two club from Odessa

The small Baltic state, like Ukraine, is also in the preparation for a first ever national championship, the dates and competing teams of which will be announced in due course.

RLEF coaching coordinator Carl Harrison, supported by colleagues Anthony Micallef (Malta development manager) and Jovan Vujosevic (South East Europe development manager), conducted the first coaching course in Spanish Catalonia earlier this month.

The Catalan governing body, l’Associació Catalana de Rugby Lliga , hosted the course in the capital Barcelona. A grand total of 45 candidates took part.

This June Catalans Dragons will play Warrington Wolves in Barcelona in a regular season Super League match.

RLEF executive officer Kevin Rudd visited Jamaica in January.

Rudd and the Jamaica Rugby League Association conducted a string of media activities for national television and radio and attended matches and coaching sessions. Sheffield Eages’ Dean Thomas, who is the JRLA technical director, also conducted an RLEF Level 1 coaching course.

Finally, interviews were conducted with the local board for a development officer position, with an announcement expected shortly .

Rugby League European Federation Shorts

• Kevin Rudd is set to travel to Germany to interview candidates for a development officer role.

• Also, initial discussions are taking place with a group in Belgium about beginning a Belgium association, as well as in Norway, Denmark and Sweden.

• Next month the RLEF stages its two first meetings of the year, in Leeds on World Club Challenge weekend for the Full & Associate members and three weeks later in Perpignan for the Official Observers. R.L.E.F in 2009

• RLEF Euro Nations Cup – October/November – , Wales, Ireland, Russia, Serbia and Lebanon

• RLEF Euro Shield – July – Czech Republic, Germany and Italy

• RLEF Euro Bowl – July/August – Ukraine, Latvia and Estonia

• International Under 16s – August – Belgrade, Serbia