Super League Europe - History

History

The competition was first mooted during the Australian Super League war as a way for Rupert Murdoch to gain the upper hand during the battle for broadcasting supremacy with the Australian Rugby League. Murdoch also approached the British clubs to form Super League. A large sum of money aided the decision, and the competition got under way in 1996. Part of the deal saw rugby league switch from a winter to a summer season.

"Supporters will see a better game in better surroundings, and the deal will see their sport receive a greater profile nationally and internationally."
Rodney Walker, RFL chairman, welcomes Super League, 5 April 1995

Initially, several mergers between existing clubs were proposed:

• Castleford, Wakefield Trinity and Featherstone Rovers would form Calder
• Hull FC and Hull Kingston Rovers would form Hull
• Whitehaven, Workington Town, Barrow and Carlisle would form Cumbria
• Warrington and Widnes were to form Cheshire
• Salford and Oldham were to form Manchester
• Sheffield and Doncaster were to form South Yorkshire

They were to be included with the following stand-alone clubs: St. Helens, Wigan, Leeds, Bradford Northern, Halifax, London Broncos and Paris Saint-Germain.

However this proved so unpopular that only existing clubs were selected for the competition. The clubs finishing below 10th in the existing top flight were excluded, which meant Featherstone Rovers, Hull, Wakefield Trinity and Widnes were left out, as were pioneering club Keighley Cougars who had just won the Second Division Championship. London Broncos, who had come fourth in the Second Division, were “fast-tracked” in on commercial grounds. A new team, Paris Saint-Germain, was created to give a French dimension.

After two years Paris were dropped from the competition. Promotion and relegation between Super League and the Rugby League National Leagues was re-introduced, and in 2002 the SLE governing body re-integrated fully into the Rugby Football League. For most intents and purposes, Super League became a re-titled first division of British rugby league. In 2006, French side Catalans Dragons (also known as UTC or Les Catalans) from Perpignan joined the league, becoming the second non-English team to compete. In order to facilitate this move, two clubs were relegated from Super League at the end of the 2005 season, Leigh who finished bottom of the league were replaced by the one club coming up from the National Leagues and Widnes who finished 11th (and would have stayed up any other year) were dropped for Les Catalans, thus the number of clubs in Super League remained at 12.