The other day I was reading a rather interesting article by Rob Peat in the archives section of the southstander.com front page about when rugby league was made illegal in France. He states that when France was defeated In WW2, many from the right of French politics went into eager collaboration with their Nazi overlords, setting up a puppet government in the spa town of Vichy. Naturally this contained many 'establishment’ friends of the beleaguered FFR the perfect opportunity to destroy league.

Under the pretence that professional sport was damaging to the moral fibre of the nation the Vichy government produced a decree of 19th December 1941 that dissolved the French Rugby League, confiscated their property, grounds and assets.

[url=http://leeds.rlfans.com/readarticle.php?article_id=108All other professional sports such as cycling and football were ignored and naturally Unions own shamateurism was overlooked. Moreover, the playing of rugby league in itself was outlawed and was made illegal![/url

Now roll forward 2010 and we no longer have the Nazi party around thank goodness, but my friend has a theory that Remnant Nazis do exist. It’d all make sense wouldn’t it considering how rugby league isn’t reaching the potential it should be.

I recommend that you all give [url=http://theoriginalnycfreeadviceman.blogspot.com/2010/05/how-democracy-is-being-murdered-by.htmlthis a read[/url and decide for yourselves!

Is Rugby League Been Suppressed By Remnant Nazis or isn’t it?

Read this too;

The Forbidden Game The Untold Story of French Rugby League By Mike Rylance

Being.

It's a well known fact that league was a target because of it's links to the working man in France.

We have laws protecting gypsies rights following their deportation to Auschwitz and the like. Reparations were made to Jews and the others who lost property and loved ones. I'm not going to put it on that level but my understanding is the confiscated grounds, property and assets were not returned because it was in France and not in Germany. Were they ever given reparations?

Would love to read it, but its too expensive to buy and I bet its hard to find and lend. If anyone can help on the latter I’d be grateful!



I don’t know this answer personally but hopefully someone who does have knowledge about this particular subject will reply to this.

Quote ="Damo-Leeds"Would love to read it, but its too expensive to buy and I bet its hard to find and lend. If anyone can help on the latter I’d be grateful! '" £7.75 delivered. www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listin ... ition=used

Quote ="Damo-Leeds"Would love to read it, but its too expensive to buy and I bet its hard to find and lend. If anyone can help on the latter I’d be grateful! '" £7.75 delivered. www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listin ... ition=used

Rugby League has failed to "take off" due to bad management over the better part of a century. It has nothing to do with the "Boys from Brazil"....and everything to do with the every man for himself attitude of the clubs owners in the mid 20th Century. The Wigan dominance of ther 80's was also damaging.....with the general population of the UK only seeing a couple of games on TV every year and a CC final that pretty much always ended with the wigan captain getting the trophy.....

Secret Nazi Organisations?...Did I log into the sinbin by mistake

I want to borrow another quote now -

[iThe majority of the governments, government agencies, authorities, agents, police and military officials are not aware of the presence of infiltrators in their midst, but would be the first to seek to remove them. The Remnant-Nazis are very, very clever! They have not only managed to deceive their ultimate enemies, most of those of us who love democracy and who love human rights and individual freedoms/liberties, but they have also managed to deceive those whose anti-social and reactionary 'values' are similar and who they plant/position in our midst![/i
Jean-Pierre A. Fenyo

Whilst upfront we can blame bad management on the reason why rugby league has failed to take off. But it wouldn’t surprise me if the Remnant-Nazis have deceived the management of rugby league since the war. As Rob Peat mentioned in his article - Cycling, Football and Union wasn’t touched by the Nazi reign in France. I can’t speak for Cycling, but Football and Union have seemed to have done better than league since the war - bad management or not.

I also want to add that Rugby League has very working class roots from the very beginning. We split from Union because the southerners had an unfair advantage over the northerners when it came to playing the game. Rugby League was all about fairness whilst the Nazis..

www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a63a2b74-da1e ... abdc0.html Quote Rugby Union ... the sport which dominates the south'"

www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a63a2b74-da1e ... abdc0.html Quote Rugby Union ... the sport which dominates the south'"

I’m not subscribed to the financial times.

Can you elaborate on what’s going on?

No, but for reasons I don't understand, my link brings up only an abbreviated form of the article. Google for "financial times rugby league world cup" and you should see the whole thing.

London Harlequins, [size=200Scarlets, based in Wrexham,[/size and Catalan Dragons of France play in Superleague, the premier domestic competition

How many name changes is that in 2 years


FFS......the FT used to be a decently written and researched paper.....now it's not even a pink chip wrapper.

I've done a lot of research into this, and have a degree in French, so here's my twopennorth on this.

The Nazis never made a specific request for RL to be banned. Professional sport was banned by the Vichy regime- but this meant sport in its pro form, not all sports which had pro setups. Association football was not banned, but its professionalism was suppressed.

Two people are behind the banning of RL. The first is Jean Ybanegaray, who was a minister in Petain's government. He was from French RL's heartlands but was a devotee of pelota, which he believed was the best sport going. He was the one who organised the ban.

But the inspiration is the second figure, the writer Robert Brasillach. He was RU-obsessed and hated RL with a passion. He used his connections with the regime (he ran its unoffical paper, 'Je suis partout') to have RL suppressed as a 'threat to the morals of French youth'.

My point therefore is this: the French RU authorities have suggested for years that the Nazis were behind the ban. But in reality, influential RU figures provoked it all, and happily confiscated money and assets from RL setups and never paid it back.

Vichy was full of opportunists who used the Nazis as a smokescreen for their own activities and conveniently buried these activities under the war crimes of the Nazis after the war. And the French RU establishment was no better.

French RL was in fact banned on 15th October 1940 by the Vichy regime, at a time when RL's heartlands were not under German occupation. Vichy and its RU friends acted alone.

Back on topic....
Yes.....RL was generally rolled over by RU in vichy France....but the OP's point was that there are still Nazi's around who are suppressing Leagues growth at the moment.......






Given that these Nazis would be about 80yrs old + and if they were alive still.....they would be German or Italian and have little or know interest in any sport. Furthermore......most of the Vichy collaberators were "dealt with" at the end of the occupation of France.
Remnant Nazis......PMSL.....really Damo-Leeds....you are a card

I did enjoy the numerous facists salutes that were made in the general direction of the RFU offices at Twickenham, when the cup final was held there a couple of years ago.

Quote ="gutterfax" Remnant Nazis......PMSL.....really Damo-Leeds....you are a card '" Just before this thread is re-directed to the sin bin, it should be made clear that there are no remnant Nazis in France: news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Politi ... 0774?f=rss

Quote ="gutterfax" Remnant Nazis......PMSL.....really Damo-Leeds....you are a card '" Just before this thread is re-directed to the sin bin, it should be made clear that there are no remnant Nazis in France: news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Politi ... 0774?f=rss

I think that Urmston Wire gives the best argument on why Remnant Nazi’s wouldn’t be interested in suppressing rugby league as The Nazis never made a specific request for RL to be banned.

But I still can’t take his word for it as history can so easily be manipulated to suit the agendas of the ruling class or shall I say Remnant Nazi’s.

However I respect Urmston Wire’s opinions as he seemed to of researched this era a lot at some point in his life and he clearly demonstrates this in his post. Something that can’t be said about me whose put a very random one and two together that I though would create a good debate.

All I’m doing is asking questions.



The Nazi’s would have children and grandchildren by now to help them. However I’m with Urmston Wire theory at the moment that Vichy & Co used the Nazi War crimes as a smoke screen for their own activities. However I’m also open to the fact that rugby league has been suppressed by something other than bad management. If these suspicions are wrong then their wrong.

Finally - for those who are requesting that this is redirected to the sinbin you’re wrong as this is a rugby league topic. I’m trying to learn what happened during that time in France in regards to rugby league and pondering what’s happening now and over history.

No you're an idiot

I had to pick up my FREE tickets to that game from their offices

.......sorry damo-leeds...there were no pictures of Hitler in reception

hang on Damo-Leeds....you may be on to something. The guy I picked the tickets up from looked like either of these guys.....
Herr Flick
Clive Woodward

Like UW, this is an area I have some knowledge in.

To be honest, the truth of the matter lies not too far away from the OP.

Not by remnant Nazis. But by people whose modern ideas don't differ at all with those resident in Vichy.

there was a fair competition between union and RL in france

in the space of 6 years RL took on the established code and had effectively beaten it

most of the leading french union were going broke, the RL game showed growth everywhere from revenues, clubs, juniors and media

because RU couldnt compete on the field with RL in a fair contest they ran to the vichy (nazi puppet) government for help

RL was banned. assets of RL clubs were stolen and given to RU clubs.

the worst thing was france was undergoing the deprivations of occupations.

rather than worry about the fate of their nation some RU people thought this was a good opportunity to eliminate RL.

nope

the FFR and french government should make reparations which in todays currency would be tens of millions

thats true

it wasnt the idea of the vichy government to ban RL. the idea of the ban came from bitter RU people.

indeed soccer was also a professional sport like RL but it continued on