The 2020 RFL League 1 was a professional

rugby league football Rugby league football, commonly known as just rugby league and sometimes football, footy, rugby or league, is a contact sport, full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular Rugby league playing field, field measur ...

competition played in England and Wales and is the third tier of the sport for

Rugby Football League The Rugby Football League is the governing body for professional rugby league in England, and until 1995 for the whole British Isles. The name Rugby Football League previously also referred to the main league competition run by the organisati ...

(RFL) affiliated clubs. The sponsors for the league were the bookmakers,

Betfred Betfred is a bookmaker based in the United Kingdom, founded by Fred Done.Pronounced to rhyme with "bone". It was first established as a single betting shop in Ordsall, Greater Manchester, Ordsall, County Borough of Salford, Salford, in 1967. Its ...

and the league continued to be known as the Betfred League 1. The league was to have followed the same structure that was in place for the 2019 season and consist of 22 rounds with each of the 11 teams playing 20 fixtures against each other home and away and two bye rounds. The team finishing top would have won automatic promotion to the 2021 Championship and be named league champions for 2020. The teams finishing second to sixth were meet in a series of play-off games culminating in the League 1 Play-Off Final. The winner of this match will also be promoted to the Championship for 2021. The season did sees the introduction of golden point extra time but no matches went to extra time before the season was suspended and subsequently abandoned. Extra-time will consist of two periods of five minutes but unlike the version in use in the

Super League The Super League (officially known as the Betfred Super League due to sponsorship from Betfred and legally known as Super League Europe), is the top-level of the British rugby league system. At present the league consists of twelve teams, of wh ...

where winner takes all, in League 1 each team will earn a point for a game where the scores finish level at the end of normal time with a third point awarded to the first team to score during extra-time. On 16 March the structure and timing of the competition was placed in doubt as all rugby league games were suspended until 3 April at least as part of the United Kingdom's response to the coronavirus pandemic. The suspension of the season was extended to indefinite. A discussion between the RFL and club officials in May saw seven of the 11 clubs reject a suggestion that the season could recommence with games being played behind closed doors. The RFL board met on 20 July and having consulted with the League 1 clubs decided to abandon the 2020 season as the majority of clubs did not support playing behind closed doors. At the date of suspension only two rounds of matches had been played and the season was declared ''

null and void In law, void means of no legal effect. An action, document, or transaction which is void is of no legal effect whatsoever: an absolute nullity—the law treats it as if it had never existed or happened. The term void ''ab initio'', which means " ...

''.

Teams

''*capacity for rugby league games may differ from official stadium capacity.''

Results

Round 1

All the ties in round one were due to be played on 15–16 February but all were postponed. Four due to one or both clubs in the tie being involved in rescheduled Challenge Cup third round ties, the original dates having been affected by

Storm Ciara Storm Ciara was a powerful and long-lived extratropical cyclone that was the first of a pair of European windstorms to affect the United Kingdom and Ireland at peak intensity less than a week apart in early February 2020, followed by Storm Denn ...

. The remaining match (North Wales Crusaders v Doncaster) was postponed due to a waterlogged pitch caused by

Storm Dennis Storm Dennis was a European windstorm which, in February 2020, became one of the most intense extratropical cyclones ever recorded, reaching a minimum central pressure of . The thirteenth named storm of the 2019–20 European windstorm season, De ...

Round 2

Round 3

Standings at date of abandonment

References

{{League 1 RFL League 1 2020 in English rugby league

RFL League 1 RFL League One (for sponsorship reasons currently known as the Betfred League One) is a professional rugby league competition based in the United Kingdom. Part of the British rugby league pyramid, the competition features clubs from England an ...