Rugby league is a team sport that is played in several regions of Spain. A competition was formed in Catalonia by the

Associació Catalana de Rugby Lliga The Associació Catalana de Rugby Lliga (ACRL) (Catalan Rugby League Association) is the governing body for the sport of rugby league in Catalonia. The Association was formed in 2007 and since then has organized and governed the Catalan competition ...

in 2008 and ran for three seasons. The sport returned to Spain with the formation of the

Spanish Rugby League Association The Spanish Rugby League Association ( es, Asociación Española de Rugby League, AERL) also known as España Rugby League, is the governing body of rugby league in Spain. The body was officially founded in 2013 and has held affiliate-level mem ...

in 2013. New clubs have subsequently formed in the Valencian Community, Madrid, and Andalucia.

History

On 30 May 1993, XIII Catalan (of

Perpignan Perpignan (, , ; ca, Perpinyà ; es, Perpiñán ; it, Perpignano ) is the prefecture of the Pyrénées-Orientales department in southern France, in the heart of the plain of Roussillon, at the foot of the Pyrenees a few kilometres from the ...

) and the Huddersfield Giants contested the Alex Angel Trophy at Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys in Barcelona. Huddersfield won 23–22.

-based professional club Catalans Dragons have hosted two matches in Barcelona, in 2009 and 2019. A crowd of 31,555 at the latter game, played at

Camp Nou Camp Nou (, meaning ''new field'', often referred to in English as the Nou Camp), officially branded as Spotify Camp Nou for sponsorship and financial reasons, is a football stadium in Barcelona, Spain. It has been the home stadium of FC Barcelo ...

against the Wigan Warriors, set a regular season attendance record for a standalone

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 ...

match.

Governing body

The governing body for the sport in Spain is the

, which was formed in 2013.

Competitions

The first competition under a Spanish governing body (see

Rugby league in Catalonia Rugby league was introduced to Catalonia following the addition of the Perpignan-based Catalans Dragons to the professional Super League in 2006. An amateur rugby league competition was formed in 2008 and ran for three seasons under the administrat ...

for previous history) began in 2014 with five clubs.

National team

The Spain national rugby league team was formed in 2014 and defeated in their first match. By beating Latvia in a playoff and then Malta and Greece in an initial qualifying group in 2015, they advanced to the final qualifying stage for the

2017 Rugby League World Cup The 2017 Rugby League World Cup was the fifteenth staging of the Rugby League World Cup tournament and took place in Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea between 27 October and 2 December 2017. The tournament featured the national teams ...

, where they were placed in a three team group (Pool B) alongside Russia and Ireland. Their first result was a 6-40 loss to Russia, at Fili Stadium, Moscow on 15 October 2016, and their second a 46-6 defeat by Ireland, which resulted in their elimination.

References

External links