The 2021 season for the franchise-based Global Rapid Rugby (GRR) competition has been cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The competition, backed by Australian billionaire Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest, had suspended its inaugural season after one round due to the coronavirus outbreak, before cancelling it entirely in April.

Robbie McRobbie, chief executive of the Hong Kong Rugby Union, which had helped organise the competition, said the uncertainty over the rugby calendar and the future of the participating teams meant they had no option but to call it off.

“We’ve been in ongoing contact with the GRR team and over the weekend they came to the conclusion that putting on a competition in 2021 was not going to be viable,” he was quoted as saying by the South China Morning Post.

GRR was set up by Forrest after the Perth-based Western Force were removed from Super Rugby following the 2017 season.

Its first two competitions, in 2018 and 2019, were classed as exhibition campaigns as organisers tested the concept.

“It’s disappointing from our point of view because we really believed that Andrew had come up with a really good product in terms of the law variations, the shape of the game, the exciting initiatives, and the high-level teams involved,” McRobbie said.