Preferred candidate France launches bid to host 2025 Rugby League World Cup insidethegames.biz - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from insidethegames.biz Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Tonga perform the haka before facing Australia in 2019.
Photo: PHOTOSPORT
It comes after the Court of Arbitration for Sport last month dismissed an appeal by the former governing body, Tonga National Rugby League, over its expulsion from the International Rugby League (IRL).
Admitting a new Tongan member was not discussed at the IRL Board meeting two weeks ago but Secretary General Danny Kazandjian said the Asia Pacific Confederation will now assume formal responsibility for speaking to all Tongan parties on both the issue of the new membership and the world cup campaign.
He said there is no requirement for an IRL member to be in place in time for the Rugby League World Cup, which is scheduled to kick off in October, but an entity must sign the tournament participation agreement.
International Rugby League Annual Report shows progress despite COVID-19 hurdles Monday, 10 May 2021
International Rugby League (IRL) has published is 2020 Annual Report, which an official release says evidences maintained progress despite an almost entire loss of the playing programme.
That augurs well for the quadrennial Rugby League World Cup which is due to take place in England between October 23 October and November 27.
Supporting members through the coronavirus pandemic, which included retaining annual grants, was IRL s priority in 2020.
This required some financial re-adjustments across the organisation owing to a massive reduction of income , said the IRL.
The rollout of the IRL digital platform, the establishment of a series of expert sub-committees, World Anti-Doping Agency recognition of the new IRL anti-doping framework are also all covered by the report.
A new governing body for Tongan rugby league should be in place within six weeks.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) this week dismissed the Tonga National Rugby League s (TNRL) appeal against its expulsion from the International Rugby League in March last year, after a long-running battle over governance, money and a threatened player boycott.
An invitational Tongan team upset Australia in November 2019.
Photo: Photosport Ltd 2019
IRL Secretary General Danny Kazandjian was pleased with the decision but saddened it had got to this point. It was completely unnecessary that it had to go to court he said. .the factual record shows unequivocally that, at every stage of this disagreement or dispute, we held out olive branches to the former Tongan Rugby League organisation (TNRL), attempting to work collaboratively with them and unfortunately at every stage the record is clear that they rejected those overtures.