SYDNEY (AP) — A team from rugby league hotspot Papua New Guinea will enter the National Rugby League beginning in 2028 after officially being granted a license on Thursday.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his Papua New Guinean counterpart James Marape met in Sydney to shake hands over the deal, the culmination of two years of planning. The pair reached an in-principle agreement with the NRL in May, and have since been working out specifics.
“A Papua New Guinea NRL team is a game-changer for Australia’s relationship with PNG and a unifying force — no two countries have a greater passion for rugby league,” Albanese said in a statement Thursday. “Australia’s relationship with the Pacific is profoundly important and our sporting ties are unique.”
The final legal documents to ratify the team’s creation are expected to be signed in the coming weeks.
The as-yet-unnamed team is seen as key diplomatic tool for Australia to strengthen ties in the hotly-contested Pacific, particularly with China’s e fforts to increase its influence in the region, and will cost Australian taxpayers 600 million Australian dollars ($380 million) over 10 years.
It will be either the NRL’s 18th or 19th franchise, pending further expansion plans into Perth, Western Australia.
Players will be granted tax incentives to relocate to PNG, and will live in a secure compound in the capital Port Moresby to be organized and funded by the PNG government. Recruitment of players is still two years away — league rules mean the new franchise will have to wait until November 2026 to begin approaching players on other NRL teams.
“This one team will be for one people, one country, one nation, a national unifier,” PNG leader Marape said in a statement. “An NRL team for PNG is more than just sports — it is a national unification strategy.”
Rugby league is a 13-man version of the 15-player sport of rugby union. League is played primarily in Australia, New Zealand, England and France but also is played in other countries such as the United States, Lebanon, which both have national teams, and other countries in the Pacific.
The 10-team Rugby League World Cup is scheduled to be played in Australia and Papua New Guinea in 2026. It was originally scheduled for France in 2025.
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