Outdoor Club Competition - National League 2023 cancelled

With apologies for the late change of plan and any resulting disruption, we have decided to postpone the launch of the National League in 2023. That is, the League will not run in 2023.

As noted in earlier announcements, all teams are invited to the Tour events that are taking place in March-August: dates and locations are all available on the events calendar.

The major impact is that there will be no League-based qualification to Nationals, and so all teams will be expected to attend Playoffs. The structure of the Playoffs (single competition or 2x regional qualifiers) will be determined based on the number of teams entering in each division.

Background

Having lost a staff member in Nov 2021, our team has been working hard to put the events and competition programme back in place across all divisions and formats of Ultimate, whilst also keeping on top of the organisation’s other responsibilities and projects. We are still dealing with indirect effects of the pandemic.

We found ourselves unable to fix and communicate sufficient information about the National League in particular, which as a new competition inevitably raises questions for clubs. 2023 is a busy year for GB squads, with both the U24 and senior squads competing in July in particular. The EUF is also introducing new competitions, and making changes to the European Ultimate Championship Series, and although the headlines of those changes have been visible for some time, the dates and details for 2023 have created extra fixture congestion.

Based on feedback and questions we received during recent weeks (from players and club organisers inside and outside the League, as well as those involved in the GB squads) we have concluded that rather than reducing the load on players, the current congestion of GB training, EUF Invites, UKU Tour events and League fixtures, was making life more difficult for many of the players and club organisers affected.

Next Steps

Obviously, a lot has changed in the last few years. For 2023, we will continue to focus on trying to re-establish weekend club tournaments across the season (the UKU Tour), with the competitive finale Playoffs (previously Regionals) -> Nationals -> EUCF. As the year progresses we will be talking to players and club organisers to understand how best to continue that process in 2024 and beyond.