SuperLiga (rugby)

The SuperLiga, officially known as the CEC Bank SuperLiga (for sponsorship reasons), is Romania's top level professional men's rugby union competition. The SuperLiga is run by Federația Română de Rugby (FRR – the Romanian Rugby Federation) and is to be contested by 7 teams at the start of 2019-2020 season, following the withdrawal from CSM București of the competition. At the end of April, Gloria Buzău announced that they will withdraw from the national competition leaving only 6 teams in the SuperLiga for the remainder of the season.

SuperLiga
Current season, competition or edition:
2019–20 SuperLiga season
FormerlyDivizia Naţională
SportRugby union
Founded1914 (1914)
Inaugural season1914
Owner(s)Federaţia Română de Rugby
No. of teams7
6 Starting with the 2020-21 season
CountryRomania
Most recent
champion(s)		CSM Știința Baia Mare (6th title)
Most titlesCSA Steaua Bucuresti (24 titles)
TV partner(s)TVR (some matches)
RugbyTV.ro (Live Streams)
Sponsor(s)CEC Bank
International cup(s)European Rugby Challenge Cup
European Rugby Continental Shield
Continental Club Rugby League
Related
competitions		Cupa României
Official websiteSuperLiga.ro

History

It was set up in 1914, only competed by two teams which were Tennis Club Român and Sporting Club, both from București, to expand and grow in the 1920s and 1930s (with a peak in the 1970s and 1980s), after Stadiul Român and seventeen more (other) teams were founded in Bucharest-only ever since. The championship took place on an annual basis, with some gap years caused by the two World Wars mostly.

The first team set up outside Bucharest (to play the top tier competition) was IAR Brașov in 1939, a team owned and run by the famous Braşov aircraft factory I.A.R. (Industria Aeronautică Română), but the first one to become champion of Romania was Universitatea Timișoara, only in 1972.

The European Champions Cup in its early years (1960s) used to be a Franco-Romanian affair, with Grivița Roșie (1964) and Dinamo (1967) grabbing their fair share of glory. In 1995 it was Farul Constanţa the team to represent Romania in the newly born Heineken Cup (splitting with Stade Toulousain the honour of playing on home ground the first ever match of the competition), but that was to be followed by no other participation of a Romanian side ever since (as of 2020). Nonetheless the Romanian teams turned to the European Challenge Cup although never actually advanced to the quarterfinals. To better cope with the strong clubs of the 6 Nations countries the Romanian Rugby Union pulled together an all-domestic franchise - Stejarii (The Oaks), to be later renamed Lupii București (Bucharest Wolves) - but despite the healthy idea and some gleams of success, the mighty SuperLiga clubs forced the Romanian Rugby Establishment to back off and allow again the champions of the SuperLiga to take part in the European Challenge Cup.

Current teams
Location of clubs in the 2019-2020 SuperLiga.

Champions

Winners by year

See also
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