The Papua New Guinea Rugby Football League (PNGRFL) last week advertised for expressions of interest in order for leagues to affiliate to the national rugby league body.
At a press conference held yesterday at the Santos National Football Stadium, representatives of the PNGRFL addressed the process and requirements of affiliation.
Game Development and Participation Coordinator, Nigel Hukula said that the PNGRFL had advertised the expression of interest last Friday to garner interest from new leagues to affiliate due to a hiatus of two years caused by COVID-19 and the National General Elections.
“The whole purpose of this expression of interest is to start getting the momentum of rugby league back into the community.”
“There’s been a lot of focus on many different areas of rugby league and community rugby league is some area that PNGRFL has seen that this is the foothold and base of a lot of our other programs,” Mr Hukula said.
According to the PNGRFL, it has been a practice for some local leagues to pay ahead affiliation fees without receiving the proper guidelines to run their competitions and be properly sanctioned.
Competition and Pathways Coordinator, Saku Ank said that the PNGRFL has been preaching over the years to get the guidelines and system’s processes right in administering rugby league.
“We are talking about the New Ireland Model, that will help our local leagues in terms of governance, football and commercial to standardise games to play at the professional level,” Ank said.
He said that advertising the expression of interest would enable PNGRFL to monitor the existing leagues, interest from new leagues as well as potential leagues.
The process involves attaining the affiliation form from PNGRFL to be filled.
The application will be screened and successful leagues that meet the requirements will be provided with a participation agreement and guidelines to adhere to PNGRFL’s systems in place.
A certificate of compliance will then be awarded to the successful affiliated local leagues that will enable them to subscribe to programs such as coaching and referee training facilitated and provided through the PNGRFL.
Southern Confederate Game Development Officer, Indy Verena elaborated on compliance and subscription.
Verena said that local leagues must understand that their leagues must comply to the requirements before subscribing which is paying the K1000 affiliation fee in order to register their players into PNGRFL’s database which is K50 for each registered player’s fee.
“We urge leagues to have their own AGMs, prior to the PNGRFL AGM. Their AGM meeting minutes, all the required documents must be submitted to PNGRFL, the four regional offices that are around in the country,” Mr Verena said.
He said that the local leagues can get in touch with PNGRFL’s local regional development officers on the ground to ensure they receive the correct information on how to affiliate their respective leagues.
PNGRFL Chief Executive Officer, Stanley Hondina said that despite two years being affected by COVID-19 and last year’s elections, PNGRFL made the decision not to sanction any local competitions after considering all the risks.
“The advertisement that went out on Friday was basically the start of launching rugby league’s calendar for 2023 coming back to normal,” Hondina said.