DAVID WILLIAMS is a keen supporter of international Rugby League but finds himself dismayed by the way in which it is administered. In this article he proposes a new way forward to achieve success.

WITH fewer than six weeks until the 2026 Rugby League World Cup begins in Sydney, an uncomfortable question needs to be asked: who cares?

One of the biggest events in the sport should be impossible to ignore, yet outside Australia and New Zealand there is remarkably little sense that the tournament is approaching. Promotion has been underwhelming, while in Britain, one of Rugby League’s traditional strongholds, the decision to place broadcast rights with a relatively small pay-per-view provider risks restricting the tournament’s reach even further.

It would be easy to blame the local organising committee, but that would miss the bigger issue. Responsibility for the health, profile and direction of the international game ultimately sits with International Rugby League.

This is not simply a disappointing World Cup build-up. It is the latest evidence of an international game that has lost its direction. IRL chair Troy Grant and secretary-general Danny Kazandjian have held senior positions for more than six years, long enough to judge whether meaningful progress has been made. The IRL’s responsibilities are clear: grow Rugby League globally, deliver international competitions and increase the sport’s commercial value and visibility. Yet after six years, where is the growth? Where is the reliable calendar? Where is the commercial strategy? Most importantly, where is the compelling vision for where international Rugby League is heading?

Grant and Kazandjian are largely anonymous figures. Grant is rarely seen outside of Australia and never heard from. He spends more time on the touchline at the State of Origin than taking the sport forward. When he does speak, there is a lack of vision, clarity or strategy.

That said, however, the most obvious failure is the absence of a credible long-term international calendar. Broadcasters need predictable events, sponsors need regular platforms for investment, emerging nations need meaningful fixtures to retain players and develop their programmes, and supporters need rivalries and occasions they can anticipate. Successful international sports understand this. They create a rhythm of competition that allows audiences and commercial value to grow. Rugby League has allowed that rhythm to disappear, leaving too many countries playing important fixtures only when a major tournament happens to come around.

The handling of the World Cup bidding process has reinforced the impression of strategic uncertainty.

In 2023, the IRL proposed separating the men’s, women’s and wheelchair World Cups from 2028, creating separate hosting and commercial opportunities. An official tender reportedly attracted 13 bids, yet the plan ultimately unravelled and the competitions were brought back together. International Rugby League increasingly appears to be reacting to circumstances rather than shaping them.

There is also a growing question about the identity of the international game. The 2026 World Cup has adopted the 2026 NRL and NRLW Premiership Rules and Interpretations, enabling systems such as the Video Review Bunker, Captain’s Challenge and shot clocks.

The reasoning is understandable, but a bigger question remains: should a World Cup be governed primarily by the rules of one domestic competition, or should international Rugby League have the confidence and authority to establish its own identity?

The danger is that the international game becomes an extension of the NRL rather than a genuinely global competition. The NRL’s commercial success should unquestionably be harnessed, but partnership is not the same as dependency. Emerging nations need consistent coaching, funding and meaningful international competition if they are to develop. If countries are merely surviving between tournaments, the IRL is not building a global sport; it is simply maintaining one.

The solution is not another strategic review filled with familiar promises. Rugby League needs an eight-year international calendar, protected representative windows, regular northern and southern hemisphere competitions and predictable World Cups.

It needs sustained investment in emerging nations, professional coaching and development structures, and funding linked to measurable outcomes. Above all, it needs leadership capable of turning Rugby League’s obvious sporting appeal into a coherent global proposition.

A closer partnership between the NRL and Rugby Football League could be the key to unlocking that potential. The NRL has the financial strength, commercial expertise and global talent base to lead renewal, while the RFL provides a powerful northern-hemisphere partner with the reach and experience to help drive the sport forward. But this should be about more than investment in Super League. The current discussions should be used to create a world vision in which Super League and the NRL each play their part in building Rugby League’s global future.

The 2026 World Cup should have been the culmination of years of planning, investment and international growth. Instead, the muted build-up and uncertainty about what comes next have exposed something much more serious. International Rugby League is drifting. The players are good enough, the games are good enough and the potential audience is there. What is missing is leadership with the ambition, imagination and commercial ability to connect those assets and turn them into sustained global growth.

After more than six years, the IRL leadership cannot reasonably keep asking the sport to wait. The time for another promise has passed. The time for accountability has arrived.

The time has therefore come for the leadership of the RFL and NRL to act. Rather than continuing to try to revive a floundering international governing body or discuss investment in to just Super League, they could use the current discussions to create a world vision where Super League and the NRL plays their respective parts in this journey. By doing this they could create something new: a properly capitalised, commercially focused and globally ambitious corporate body, owned jointly by the RFL and NRL, with a clear mandate to rebuild international Rugby League from the ground up based on club and international matches and events.

Its purpose should be nothing less than to unlock the sport’s potential across the world — creating a compelling international calendar, taking Super League and NRL fixtures into new markets, staging internationals across established and emerging territories, investing systematically in developing nations and building events capable of attracting broadcasters, sponsors, supporters and new participants. This should not be an Australian takeover or an English preservation exercise; it should be a genuine partnership in which both organisations use their respective strengths to ensure that all parties proportionately deliver what is needed to make the vision work.

The opportunity is there, but it requires a decisive break with the past. The RFL and NRL now have a choice: continue to prop up a system that is demonstrably failing, or show the leadership and ambition required to replace it with an organisation capable of making Rugby League a truly global sport.