Roger Alton

The future of sport is in the Middle East

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issue 05 November 2022

When the burly honchos of the Rugby League World Cup gushed about taking the game to new heights, no one was actually thinking about the Golan Heights – but that’s where we are. What sounds like a fascinating quarter–final takes place on Friday (as I write) when the dominant team in global rugby league, Australia, take on Lebanon in Huddersfield – the birthplace of the game.

Amid the blizzard of sporting world cups currently taking place across the globe, this match has it all. The Lebanese team, known as the Cedars, are coached by Australian Michael Cheika, one of the world’s most eminent coaches and a former boss of the Wallabies’ rugby union side. That’s an awful lot of rugby in the mix already. And in an eye–watering bit of multitasking, after the game in Huddersfield, Cheika sets off for London where the rugby union team he now coaches, Argentina, will be England’s opponents at Twickenham on Sunday.

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