Jose Sanchez
Research expert covering society, economy, & politics for Latin America
Rugby league in Great Britain - statistics & facts
In Great Britain, rugby league is as synonymous with northern England as chips and gravy. While the sport is played nationwide, and teams from southern England regularly feature in the higher leagues, the heartlands of the sport are based around the M62 motorway. This corridor, which links Merseyside clubs with teams in Cheshire, Greater Manchester, and Yorkshire, was the region from which the Northern Rugby Football Union (NRFU) sprang in 1895. Formed of 21 founding clubs, the NRFU split from the Rugby Football Union (RFU), primarily over the latter refusing clubs the right to pay their players. This schism saw the development of two separate codes, with rugby union in the United Kingdom having a separate set of rules, a distinction that can bamboozle the uninitiated. Today, the NRFU is known as the Rugby Football League (RFL) and is the governing body for rugby league in England.
