New Zealand Rugby took legal action on Thursday against the Australian Rugby League Commission to stop a new NRL club from using the name “PNG Chiefs”, filing in the New Zealand High Court 13 days before the Port Moresby franchise unveils its logo. The proceedings target the commission, which runs the NRL, and seek both an interim and a final injunction against “PNG Chiefs”, “Chiefs” or any similar name in New Zealand.
The club at the centre of it has not played a game. The Australian government-backed Chiefs are due to become the National Rugby League’s 19th team from 2028, based in Port Moresby. The club on the other side has been playing for three decades. The Chiefs name has long been associated with the Super Rugby franchise in New Zealand’s Waikato region, which has used the name since 1996.
NZR chief executive Steve Lancaster framed the filing as defensive. “We now have a responsibility to protect the Chiefs brand,” he said, in a statement reported by AFP.
Peter V’landys, the ARLC’s executive chairman, answered within hours. ABC News reported that he called the complaint hypocritical, arguing that the New South Wales rugby league team had used the “Blues” brand for more than half a century before the Auckland Blues Super Rugby franchise launched 30 years ago. His line to the ABC was blunt: “We will defend this vigorously.”
Who owns the word
NZR’s legal position rests on registrations, and on a finding from Canberra. In New Zealand, NZR owns both the trademark rights for the word Chiefs and the Chiefs logo, and since 1998 it has also held trademark protection for the Chiefs logo in Australia.
The sharper weapon is a ruling from Australia’s own trademark office. According to NZR, as reported by AAP, IP Australia warned of a “real and tangible danger of confusion” when the ARLC applied for trademark protection for “PNG Chiefs”. The Sydney Morning Herald, in reporting republished by the Pacific Islands News Association, said the NRL applied to IP Australia to register the PNG Chiefs as a trademark two days after Marape’s announcement. The same report said the NRL argued unsuccessfully that identical team names already exist in different sporting leagues, and that the PNG Chiefs would not be confused with rugby’s Chiefs, whose logo features a Māori man holding a traditional weapon.
Reporting on the status of that application differs. RNZ, in a piece carried by 1News, said IP Australia knocked back the NRL’s registration attempts over potential brand confusion. A separate ABC report said IP Australia examined the PNG Chiefs’ case and gave it an initial acceptance, triggering an “opposition period”. Exepreneur could not reconcile the two accounts from public records before publication.
The Waikato club’s argument turns on overlap. Chiefs chief executive Simon Graafhuis told 1News that same-name teams can coexist across different sports and markets, but that the problem here is two similar sports competing “in the same market, for the same fans, in overlapping windows.” ABC reported that Graafhuis said a drastically different colour scheme would not be enough to satisfy the club that the PNG team was not infringing on its name and trademark.
The Super Rugby side’s record gives the brand weight. The Chiefs, formerly known as the Waikato Chiefs and officially called the Gallagher Chiefs for sponsorship reasons, are based in Hamilton, and in 2013 they became the fourth team to record back-to-back Super Rugby titles, beating the Brumbies 27–22 at Waikato Stadium.
The PNG case for the name
Port Moresby chose the word for reasons that have nothing to do with Hamilton. On 12 October 2025, Prime Minister James Marape announced that the new team would be known as the PNG Chiefs, a name with cultural significance for men and women. According to the club’s record of the announcement, three names were shortlisted, and Chiefs appealed because the term applies equally to a male or female leader in Papua New Guinea.
Marape put it in historical terms. The Sydney Morning Herald quoted him saying the name reflects a history where “chiefs, both male and female, held our nation together.” The same report noted the geopolitical sensitivity around the name, which Marape endorsed after a public survey and talks between the PNG and Australian governments, the NRL and the club’s board.
Chief executive Lorna McPherson has leaned on that public process. In a Q&A with Business Advantage PNG, she said the team name was selected through national public engagement, and that public involvement in choosing it shows strong community ownership.
The sport’s standing in PNG raises the stakes of any forced change. Papua New Guinea is the only country in the world where rugby league is the most popular sport, according to ABC News.
The A$600 million question
The name sits on top of one of the largest sports-diplomacy commitments in the Pacific. SBS reported that the Australian government will contribute A$600 million over 10 years for PNG to develop the team and associated facilities in Port Moresby. Per SBS’s breakdown, A$290 million goes directly to the franchise, A$60 million to the NRL as a licensing fee, and A$250 million to broader rugby league programmes in the Pacific.
The money comes with strings. AAP reported that the NRL cannot ask for extra funding during or after the deal, and the federal government can withdraw support at any point if PNG signs a security deal with China. When the agreement expires at the end of 2034, the team must be financially viable to survive. PNG’s contribution is fiscal: its government will grant income tax exemptions to those relocating, meaning players could earn almost twice their Australian salary.
A franchise that must stand on its own commercially within eight seasons of kick-off needs a merchandisable, registrable identity. Graafhuis rejects the idea that a rebrand threatens that. 1News reported that he said he could not see how a name pivot by the PNG franchise would endanger the Australian investment, and his advice was short: “Find another name that’s appropriate and meaningful.”
NZR has been careful to separate its claim from the expansion project. Lancaster said, according to AAP, “this is not about rugby league’s growth in the Pacific.”
V’landys reads it differently. He told the ABC that rugby union is feeling threatened by rugby league in New Zealand, pointing to sell-outs at most league games.
What the court can and cannot do
The injunction NZR seeks is territorial. NZR wants an order that stops the use of “PNG Chiefs”, “Chiefs” or any similar name in New Zealand. It does not, on the public filings described so far, seek to bar the name in PNG or Australia.
A New Zealand-only ban may not be workable in practice. RNZ reported that New Zealand Rugby’s case looks strong on paper but is not straightforward, according to a lawyer it interviewed, and that intellectual property lawyer Duckworth said a regional rebrand applying only in New Zealand is unlikely, given social media and global coverage. The NRL’s only New Zealand club, the Warriors, plays out of Auckland, so a PNG Chiefs fixture across the Tasman is a matter of when, once the 2028 draw is set.
NZR says talks failed before it filed. A spokesperson said NZR had been unable to engage constructively with the ARLC, and that without legal action there would be no change to the team’s name ahead of the official launch on October 21, 2026. Not every outlet expects the filing to bite before that date. Papua New Guinea Today reported that the court action is not expected to affect the PNG team’s official launch scheduled for October 21.
What happens on 21 October
The club has kept its calendar. The National Indigenous Times reported that a special event in Port Moresby will unveil the logo on October 21, with the jersey released the following day. AAP noted the launch coincides with a Rugby League World Cup match in Port Moresby on Saturday October 24.
Colours are part of the dispute. Rugby’s Chiefs, according to the Sydney Morning Herald, wear the same black, red and yellow worn by PNG teams, colours that also appear on the PNG Chiefs’ social media channels. The PNG side has signalled a departure. A PNG Chiefs spokesperson told RNZ Pacific that people should not assume the playing strip will be the red, black and yellow of PNG’s flag, which belongs more to the national side, the Kumuls, and expressed confidence the 21 October launch would distinguish the club and bring clarity.
The roster is already built around the brand. Morea Morea, Finley Glare and Gairo Voro are the first home-grown PNG signings to the NRL squad, alongside South Sydney winger Alex Johnston.
Neither side has moved in 12 months of correspondence, and the High Court now holds the timetable. The logo goes up in Port Moresby in 11 days, with or without a ruling from Wellington.
