BY JOHN DAVIDSON
The Canada Co-Operative Championship Rugby League was billed as being “the first-professional rugby league competition in Canada”, but two years after plans for it went public the new competition has come to a standstill without playing a single game.
In March 2021 a press release announced a new competition, based in Toronto, to begin with a short-form tournament to be held at Lamport Stadium in the summer of 2022, and be followed by a full 12-team men’s and women’s league launching in 2023, with a West Coast Division and Eastern Division.
The Canada Co-Operative Championship Rugby League (CCCRL) started with a blaze of publicity and positivity, and the backing of local governing body Canada Rugby League (CRL).
It was to be majority owned by fans, backed by private equity and aimed to reintroduce professional rugby league to the people of Canada, following the collapse of Toronto Wolfpack and the stillbirth of the Ottawa Aces.
Supported by a number of fans and former employees of the Wolfpack, it was bold and ambitious.
But no tournaments or games have taken place two years after it was first revealed, and the CCRL’s directors and its social media accounts have long gone quiet.
English community coach Chris Coates was the founding director of the CCRL and was interviewed by this site about it back in 2021, which you can read in full here, but he says he is now no longer involved.
Coates told rugbyleaguehub.com Long Reads that he had to step away from the CCRL because of conflicts of interest in his work role, and is unsure what happened with the competition.
Sandy Domingos-Shipley, a Canadian who lives in the UK, was the Vice President of CCCRL, and two years ago did this interview with Forty20 Live about it. But she has not responded to attempts from rugbyleaguehub.com Long Reads to contact her.
The competition’s Twitter account has not posted a tweet for nearly a year, while its Facebook account has also been dormant since March last year. Its website is now just a holding page.
Former Leeds Rhinos forward Stevie Ward was appointed to the CCRL’s board of directors in March 2021. Ward has been unavailable for comment at this stage.
rugbyleaguehub.com Long Reads contacted the CCRL’s head of communications about the current state of the competition, who said: “There’s not much to report on at the moment. However, CCCRL is planning to provide a general update soon.”
When pressed on when that update might be, he said: “I don’t have that information. When I do hear, I will let you know.”
rugbyleaguehub.com Long Reads understands no mini-tournament was played in Toronto last year and plans had been derailed by the Covid-19 pandemic. There has been no updates internally from the CCCRL for many months, leaving its volunteers frustrated.
At the time of its launch two years ago the CCRL described itself as: “Formed by a group of directors, the world’s first co-operatively owned professional Rugby League competition. Based out of Toronto, the co-operative with the support of the Ontario Co-Operative Association will employ over 100 employees from players to backroom staff, to broadcasting and production.
“Founded in 2020, its primary mission is to deliver professional Rugby League in Canada and in-turn support the national growth of the sport by direct re-investment of a portion of profits back into the CRL. As a co-operative league it will be publicly owned with dividends going back to its members.
“The CCCRL is positioning itself as one of the most innovative sporting organizations in the nation and in the world of Rugby League.”
However, now the CCCRL seems to have disappeared as quickly as it appeared 24 months ago.
One involved party told rugbyleaguehub.com Long Reads: “The CCCRL had a lot of people doing volunteer work behind the scenes, some incredible commitments by major sponsors and advertisers, lots of marketing research, team branding – all that sort of stuff sorted out.
“But it kept on hitting one Covid roadblock after another. Timelines kept getting pushed further along. As that happened it got harder and harder to pull people together to take part.
“Players drifted away. The enthusiasm of people waned. I know that key people on the ground in Toronto changed employment and were no longer in the positions needed.
“There was the problem of booking Lamport Stadium – to book a date for 2023 one has to apply by late December 2022, or hope that there’s an opening later on.
“Since it’s a city facility the priority is given to community programs/sports, and the professional teams that already work out of the stadium.
“A one-off event moves way down the priority list.”
The source denied the CCRL was a pipedream, stating: “It was never bullshit, it just needed a lot more fleshing out. “
In March 2021 the CCRL announced a partnership agreement with Quadrant Biosciences, a company devoted to working alongside academic institutions, medical researchers and engineers to gain research and develop findings in various neurological health challenges among children and young adults.
In July of the same year it announced that: “Toronto, Ontario; Hamilton, Ontario and Montreal, Quebec are the three cities that will compete in and represent the Eastern Conference. These three destinations will feature both a men’s and women’s competition. The team names for all three East Coast cities for both the men’s and women’s Clubs will be decided at a later date.”
Then in August it confirmed that: “Vancouver, British Columbia; Calgary, Alberta; and Reginia, Saskatchewan are the three cities that will compete in and represent the Western Conference. These three destinations will feature both a men’s and women’s competition. The team names for all three West Coast cities for both the men’s and women’s Clubs will be decided at a later date.”
The same month it announced that it had: “officially formed an all-women’s committee with the purpose of laying the foundation and structure for the women’s competition. The CCCRL board members have appointed Krista Kent, Natalie King, Jennifer Garford and Danika Priim to lead the developmental process for the women’s game, providing the structure and organization for the female athletes selected to tryout and play for the competition that will begin in the summer of 2022 in Toronto, Ontario.”
Asked in 2021 by Steve Mascord on this site about whether the CCRL needed investors, or was it all community-based ownership, Coates said at the time: “The idea is that this would be a 60-40 model.
“Sixty-percent of the model would be all fan-owned and 40 per cent private equity. We know fans have been burnt in the past buying season tickets and nothing came to fruition.
“We want to make sure that from a commercial standpoint that people can see money coming into the bank from a commercial perspective so that people know it’s definitely going to happen, so that when people do invest their money, that there’s some substance behind it.
“We’ve been speaking to corporate financiers, we’ve been talking to a bonds issuer to ensure that you can prove there’s money going into the account so that people have more confidence in this.”
The CRL has been approached for comment.
