Odtnhj

Rugby Premier League

Current season, competition or edition: 2017 Russian Professional Rugby League season
Sport	Rugby union
Founded	2005
No. of teams	8
Country	Russia
Most recent champion(s)	VVA Saracens

Professional Rugby League (Russian: Профессиональная регбийная лига) is the premier rugby union competition in Russia. The Professional League was formed in 2005 and succeeds the Superleague. The Superleague, in turn, was active from 1992 to 2004 and succeeded the Soviet Championship.

Each club plays each opponent twice; four points are awarded for a win, two for a draw, and no points are given for a defeat. A similar points system is used by most of the club competitions. The top four clubs proceed to the play-offs (first introduced in 2006).

History

The founding of the league coincided with a period of rapid change for Russian rugby, and the format has differed nearly every season since 2005.

In 2007, Yug-Krasnodar were admitted to the competition, increasing the league's size to eight teams. For 2008 several lower division clubs were admitted, with a total of 14 teams split into three conferences based on geography. Many of elevated clubs were semiprofessional or even amateur in nature, which lead a lack of competitive balance. The average attendance that season was 4285.

2010 saw another change of format. Gone was the East-West divide, culminating in the formation of a 'Super Group'. VVA Monino, Krasny Yar, Yenisey-STM, Slava Moscow, RC Novokuznetsk and Imperia-Dynamo are joined by Fili Moscow and Spartak GM in a straight home-and-away league format. The Rugby Union of Russia were reluctant to make any changes in 2011, a World Cup year.

Current Teams

Geographic Locations

Slava

VVA Saracens

Enisei-STM

Krasny Yar

Kuban

Metallurg

Lokomotiv

Bulava

Locations of the 2019 Professional Rugby League teams

Information

Club	City	Stadium	Capacity	Coach
Enisei-STM	Krasnoyarsk	Avangard	2535	Vakil Valeev
Krasny Yar	Krasnoyarsk	Krasny Yar	3200	Igor Nikolaychuk
VVA Saracens	Monino	Gagarin	8160	Nikolay Nerush
Kuban	Krasnodar	Trud	3000	Phil Werahiko
Slava	Moscow	Slava	2000	Gia Amirkhanashvili
Metallurg	Novokuznetsk	Rugby	2000	Vladimir Negodin
Bulava	Taganrog	Raduga	2000	Vladimir Simonov
Lokomotiv	Penza	Pervomaysky	5182	Alexander Yanyushkin

Seasons

League Honour Board

References

External links

• 
  Official website (in Russian)
  


• 
  Information rugby portal (in Russian)
  


• 
  Russian rugby statistics (in Russian)