FRU eyes European team expansion

The Fiji Rugby Union (FRU) board has approved the establishment of another Fijian team – the Latui which would be for the European market.

FRU chief executive officer Koli Sewabu said while it has not been formalised yet, they are looking at opportunities to expand their wings in the Northern hemisphere.

“There’s an extra pathway for our peers, but we’re looking at the Latui, or whatever brand that we will decide on, which will go into the European market,” Sewabu said.

Once the legal structure has been confirmed and endorsed by the board, Sewabu said they would go into some of the exhibition games in Europe.

Sewabu hopes that it could be done by the end of May or June.

“We’ll pick the top domestic players who are not in the Super Rugby or in the Drua platform.

“We look at those who are on the verge of making either Pro D2 or Top 14 in France and all around Europe. They will form the basis of that particular team to play exhibition games in France, in the UK.”

“Hopefully, they’ll be investors with the appetite to invest more into the programme, so we can ultimately have a professional league playing in Europe over the next couple of years. That’s the basis around that concept.”

Sewabu added they are looking at younger players under 23-years-old to expand the player base for the Flying Fijians side.

“At the moment when we do our analysis, our current average age playing consistently well are sitting at 28 years. We need to bring that down to 21 or below 23.

“More so to grow the depth of Fiji Rugby as we know we’re heading into this new competition which is a 10-year-agreement in the rugby nations, we need to increase our player base as well.

“Not only that it’s about exposing our players into those professional environments and high level competitions so that we can start to reduce the gap between domestic and international rugby.”