The Russian Rugby Championship, officially known as the Liga Stavok - Russian Rugby Championship for sponsorship reasons (russian: Лига Ставок - Чемпионат России по регби), is Russia's top level professional men's rugby union competition. The Russian Rugby Championship is run by
Russian Rugby Union and is contested by 10 teams as of the 2019-2020 season.
History
The founding of the league coincided with a period of rapid change for Russian rugby. The first Russian rugby championship, which succeeded the
Soviet Rugby Championship, was played in 1992, under the name Russian Superleague. The league kept this name until 2004, when the competition was then rebranded as the Rugby Premier League.
In 2007, Yug-Krasnodar were admitted to the competition, increasing the number of teams in the league to eight.
Just one year later, in 2008, a further six teams from several of the lower division competitions were admitted into the Rugby Premier League. This increased the total number of teams again, to fourteen teams. The fourteen teams were split into three
conferences
A conference is a meeting of two or more experts to discuss and exchange opinions or new information about a particular topic.
Conferences can be used as a form of group decision-making, although discussion, not always decisions, are the main ...
, based on geography, in that season. One thing to note was that many of the elevated clubs geographically were semi-professional or even amateur in nature, which lead to a lack of competitive balance.
2010 saw another change of format to the Rugby Premier League where the East-West divide was removed, culminating in the formation of a 'Super Group'. This meant that
VVA-Podmoskovye Monino
The VVA-Podmoskovye is a Russian rugby union team playing in the Professional Rugby League. The team plays at Gagarin Air Force Academy stadium in Monino, a garrison town just outside Moscow. VVA-Podmoskovye have strong links to the air force and a ...
,
Krasny Yar,
Enisey-STM,
Slava Moscow
Slava Moscow is a Russian rugby union club from Moscow. They participate in the Professional Rugby League, the premier rugby competition of Russia. They play in yellow and red.
History
Honours
* USSR/ Russian Championship (2): 1979, 1982
* Runn ...
,
RC Novokuznetsk
Metallurg is a Russian rugby club from Kemerovo Oblast. They participate in the Professional Rugby League, the top division of Russian rugby
Rugby may refer to:
Sport
* Rugby football in many forms:
** Rugby league: 13 players per side
*** Mast ...
and
Imperia-Dynamo as well as
Fili Moscow and
Spartak GM were scheduled to play each other in a straight home-and-away league format.
Current Teams
Current Teams
Note: Flags indicate national union as has been defined under WR eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-WR nationality
Champions
Winners by year
See also
*
Rugby union in Russia
Rugby union in Russia is a moderately popular sport. Russia was in 2011 ranked 20th worldwide by the World Rugby, having over three hundred clubs and close to 22,000 players nationally. Russian Rugby Championship is the top-level professional com ...
External links
Official websiteRussian rugby statistics
{{Top sport leagues in Russia
Professional Rugby League
The Russian Rugby Championship, officially known as the Liga Stavok - Russian Rugby Championship for sponsorship reasons (russian: Лига Ставок - Чемпионат России по регби), is Russia's top level professional men's ...
Sports leagues established in 2005
2005 establishments in Russia
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
National rugby union premier leagues
rugby union
Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its m ...
Professional sports leagues in Russia