Rugby league

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Rugby league is a form of football played between two teams of 13 players on large rectangular grass fields. It originated in the north of England in 1895 when 23 member clubs of the Rugby Football Union (RFU) broke away over the issue of "broken time payments" to form what was then called the Northern Union. Whereas the RFU continued to espouse amateurism for almost another hundred years, the Northern Union became increasingly professional and gradually introduced its own rules to create a different code of football. Eventually, the Northern Union became the Rugby Football League (RFL) and the sport became established in Australia, New Zealand, France and Papua New Guinea.

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