Can be found here: rlif.com/rugby-league-internatio ... ailable-to Key aims seem to include - 16 team men's World Cup and 8 team women's World Cup - $10m of reserves by 2025, with at least 75% of reserves to go to member nations each year; and 8 top tier nations to be self-sufficient. - 70 member countries - One set of laws for the whole game. Some interesting aims that caught my eye - "Support Lions/Australia/NZ" - "Target two additional G20 nations for development". Thoughts?

Can be found here: rlif.com/rugby-league-internatio ... ailable-to Key aims seem to include - 16 team men's World Cup and 8 team women's World Cup - $10m of reserves by 2025, with at least 75% of reserves to go to member nations each year; and 8 top tier nations to be self-sufficient. - 70 member countries - One set of laws for the whole game. Some interesting aims that caught my eye - "Support Lions/Australia/NZ" - "Target two additional G20 nations for development". Thoughts?

9s is a short-form way of spreading the game into new markets.

Have a look at union's 7s circuit - there are teams on there like Spain, Portugal, Russia and Kenya who have no great legacy or ability in fifteen a side, but can compete on the biggest stage in 7s instead.

If you can use 9s to engage these kinds of countries in RL then all the better for it.

Yeah they are decent and realistic aims, especially the 16 team world cup which I think is a must cos 3 team groups are a joke.

I would like to have been an expansion of the European cup to maybe 2 groups of 4 with 4 going to semis and then a final. That would help develop smaller nations cos they would be consistently playing against home nations and France and those teams aren't so good that they couldn't compete after a few years.

I would like a guarantee that they wont start moving tournaments again. Lets stick to every 4 years for a world cup and every 2 for four nations and European cup say every two years as well on four nations years but at the start of the year so that the winner can still play in the four nations because changing next years to this so Scotland can play in four nations is just strange to me.

If they can put in place just the aim of "creating an 8 year calendar of events" it'd be fantastic. That alone would be a huge step forward.

and that the RLIF should be the ones to decide what they are!
Whilst I am a little upset with who the current chairman is, there should be no doubt that the RLIF should become the ultimate governors of the game. The NRL/ARL have all the money but they shouldn't be able to overrule the rest of the games structure.

A unified and agreed calendar would be great too, with fixtures published in advance

So - 7-tackle rule: yay or nay?

I say yes. But that 'shot clock' thing they're bringing in seems completely unnecessary to me.

I hope we stick with the super group/groups format for the world cups.

Which g20 nations? France, US, Canada, Italy?

Would prefer Japan (they are better built for RL than RU), China, Russia.

Japan would be a tough nut to crack. They are an established rugby union market, with the top clubs funded by huge multinational businesses and pulling in top players from the southern hemisphere nations.

China and Russia would potentially be more realistic, although the Chinese sporting legacy tends to be in individual sports rather than team ones.

There was the start of something bubbling away in China back in 2012. They even had a website, which has now disappeared. While no longer active they still have a Facebook Page www.facebook.com/ChineseRL/ There is also an active RL movement happening in Hong Kong. https://www.facebook.com/hkrugbyleague/ and www.hongkongrugbyleague.com

There was the start of something bubbling away in China back in 2012. They even had a website, which has now disappeared. While no longer active they still have a Facebook Page www.facebook.com/ChineseRL/ There is also an active RL movement happening in Hong Kong. https://www.facebook.com/hkrugbyleague/ and www.hongkongrugbyleague.com

With RU 7's becoming an Olympic sport it's going to make expansion into new countries much harder, any "rugby" funding is going to go that way first.

Notwithstanding Hong Kong's Rugby League ambitions, there has been some further growth in Thailand and the Philippines which may help Japan with some regional competition. There are a lot of promising seeds out there, it's going to be down to how the RLEF/RLIF and the global fanbase as a whole nurture those seeds.

I'd hope that there would be some on-demand or live streaming deals with companies in the various areas which would assist in getting footage out onto social media. The demographic for capturing young players has changed, we're no longer beholden to the monoliths of the TV and the papers. Get it trending on Twitter & Facebook with supporting Instagram and Snapchat shots. This is a chance for RL to get ahead in the new publicity and revenue streams from the net; kids these days stream it onto their phones and screen cast it if needed. If anything showed that it was the U19's Commonwealth 9's.