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The World Club Challenge is an annual Rugby League competition held between the winners of the Australia n NRL competition and the Super League (Europe) competition. HISTORY The competition began unofficially in 1976 as a match between the Australian and English champions, followed by another unofficial match in 1987 . The first official World Club Challenge was contested between Widnes and Canberra in 1989 . Three further matches, each involving Wigan, were staged in through the early 1990s. With the outbreak of the Australian Super League War in 1995, the World Club Challenge was not staged again until 1997 . In that year the competition was restructured to included 22 clubs from the Australian and European Super League competitions. As it was contested over 6 rounds in 2 hemispheres, with $1,000,000 prize money, the competition was prohibitively expensive to stage, and it reportedly lost over $5,000,000. This, coupled with the poor ratings and attendances that were achieved both in Australia and Europe, led to the competition being postponed for a number of years. For results of this tournament, see 1997 World Club Challenge . When it was resurrected in 2000 , it was once more played between the winners of the premierships in Australia and the United Kingdom. It has been since contested annually in various venues in the United Kingdom before the commencement of Super League and National Rugby League seasons. Australian commentators sometimes deride the competition, citing the British home ground advantage and wintry conditions as reasons for Australian teams' poor performances. {Link without Title} It has been reported that in February 2009 the ESL and NRL champions may play each other in the Seychelles Islands . {Link without Title} RESULTS STATISTICS AND RECORDS Except where noted, these statistics do not include pool matches from the 1997 World Club Challenge. Titles won (country of origin) Titles won (club) Most points scored (individual) Try scorers Goals (conversions and penalties) Field goals Grounds SOURCES |
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