Nigeria Rugby League Association

The Nigeria Rugby League Association (NRLA) recently hosted the 2019 Middle East and Africa (MEA) Championship with Nigeria emerging as the eventual winners of the tournament, defeating Morocco 38-16 at the TBS Cricket Oval, home of Lagos Cricket Club. The championship, which took place in October 2019, was the first-of-its-kind in Nigeria, featuring four countries: Ghana, Cameroon, Morocco, and host country Nigeria.

As a result of this win, Nigeria has laid the foundation for NRLA to build upon its success and sets its sights towards an ambitious plan of qualifying and flying Nigeria’s Flag at the 2025 World Cup.

To get to the World Cup, there will be a series of scouting, sensitisation, team-building, conferences, matches, and exhibitions taking place. In addition to this, NRLA is encouraging and using its platform to train and empower youths through it thereby sponsoring the revolution and introduction of Rugby at the grassroots level.

NRLA intends to expand the National League to include the South-South and South-East, as well as to develop Rugby League at schools in order to establish under-16s and under-18s national teams for the 2025 World Cup.

During the MEA championship the NRLA, along with the World Cup International Development Program visited Toyibat Comprehensive High School and had a series of sessions with the kids on the field and in the classroom, and introduced the Rugby League game to them. On matchday, they were joined by a number of other children from various schools to support their national team.

The NRLA has achieved a lot in a very short time, and it is noteworthy to mention that all their efforts have been self-funded as sponsorship wasn’t forthcoming (except for donations in-kind) in its inaugural year. The NRLA ambitions mentioned above requires fundraising efforts from the public, and every other avenue possible.

To NRLA, sport is about shared joys, passions, commitment, a way to foster unity, a way to help build communities and most importantly, changing lives through the game. Alongside the championships, NRLA aims to host a number of annual events including national women and youth tournaments.

Your donations will help NRLA reach its goal to have the necessary resources to be in the financial position to enable passionate young male and female players to take their careers to the next level at home and abroad. For further information, and if you would like to support NRLA please Rugby league website and make a donation at the NRLA GoFundMe website

For corporate sponsorship inquiries, please kindly reach out to the Marketing Director, Yemi Bakre at y.bakre@nigeriarugbyleague.org or Strategy Director, Michael Ogunbiyi on m.ogunbiyi@nigeriarugbyleague.org

NRLA would like to thank you in advance as you help move Nigerian Rugby to the next level. Please follow them on social media channels for timely updates: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NigeriaRL/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/nigeriarl?lang=en | Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nigeriarugbyleague/