NRL chief will fly to England for crunch talks over Super League merger

Australian rugby league chief Andrew Abdo will fly to the UK later this month for high-level talks over a merger of the National Rugby League (NRL) and Super League, The i Paper has learned.

Speculation about the NRL buying a stake in UK rugby league and Super League has been bubbling away for the past 13 months and has intensified with English clubs playing in Las Vegas in February as part of the NRL’s venture into the United States market.

NRL chairman Peter V’landys has been vocal about the desire to invest in Super League as part of a plan to strengthen rugby league globally and boost the international game.

And it is understood that Abdo, the CEO of the NRL, will sit down with Rugby Football League (RFL) chairman Nigel Wood and Rugby League Commercial managing director Rhodri Jones in London within the next fortnight to help sort out a deal for the European competition.

Powerbrokers in the UK and club owners have largely remained open to the possibility of the NRL buying a stake in Super League, if the offer and the terms of the deal are right. However, they have yet to be formally presented with a financial offer from the NRL.

But the sign of Abdo’s upcoming visit to London for talks is seen as a major positive by influential figures in the UK.

According to sources in Australia, the NRL “are going hard” in their bid to buy into Super League, with the South African CEO to spend two to three days in the capital.

The i Paper understands that the NRL has been informed that the RFL and RL Commercial will need a firm financial proposal to be tabled first, as well as sign off from Sport England, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, and the RFL board for any investment bid to be accepted.

“All of the sign offs are very achievable if there is new funding into the game that benefits clubs and grassroots – but it has to be judged against ‘incremental income’,” a high-level source told The i Paper.

“That is, if the funding is more than is currently distributed to the clubs or is projected to be distributed.”

There is a general feeling in Super League currently that a majority of the clubs are in favour of NRL involvement in the competition.

Nearly every Super League club reported losses of between £1m and £2m each last year. A number of professional and semi-professional clubs in the UK have gone bust in recent months, including Salford Red Devils and Featherstone Rovers.

In 2026, 12 of the 14 Super League sides each received £1.3m in central distribution from the RFL, as part of the sport’s television broadcasting deal with Sky, worth around £21.5m per year. That broadcast deal expires at the end of this year.

Newly promoted clubs York Knights and Toulouse Olympique received just £650,000 in central distribution funding each. Toulouse and fellow French side Catalans Dragons also have to cover all the travel costs for all visiting teams and match officials, believed to cost around £800,000 to £900,000 each.

Super League and the RFL are heavily reliant on money from Sport England and their TV broadcast deal. Sport England has provided the RFL with £15.7m in funding over five years since 2022.