Russian Rugby Championship

The founding of the league coincided with a period of rapid change for Russian rugby.

Just one year later, in 2008, a further six teams from several of the lower division competitions were admitted into the Rugby Premier League.

One thing to note was that many of the elevated clubs geographically were semi-professional or even amateur in nature, which lead to a lack of competitive balance.

This meant that VVA-Podmoskovye Monino, Krasny Yar, Enisey-STM, Slava Moscow, RC Novokuznetsk and Imperia-Dynamo as well as Fili Moscow and Spartak GM were scheduled to play each other in a straight home-and-away league format.

Note: Flags indicate national union as has been defined under WR eligibility rules.