The 13-a-side branch of the Serbian sporting powerhouse hopes to hear soon if its application to be in next year’s Challenge Cup has been successful.
But they also hope to be admitted into League One, the third tier of the game over here, but have promised not to ‘do a Toronto’ and buy their way through the divisions.
Catalan Dragons’ historic Challenge Cup win on Saturday may also spark a flood of interest at getting teams in the club system from across Europe, with Belgrade and Berlin maybe lining up alongside Barrow and Batley.
Red Star board member Matty Wright, whose side plays in the Balkan and Serbian Super Leagues, told SunSport: “We’re looking at going for a place in League One.
“We could be part of a bigger plan to expand rugby league. We also want to go on a bigger stage as we’re not comfortable at being big fish in a small pond.
“A move to League One could also show off the talented homegrown players that we’ve got but there are a lot of clubs around Europe looking at a League One place with a similar feeling to us.
“We’ve submitted our formal proposal to the Rugby Football League for the cup, which basically says we want to prove our worth and show we’ve got a capable team.
“The Challenge Cup is the best platform to do that and Catalans showed it can be done, although we’re not saying we’re going to win it.
“We’ll enter at round one, we wouldn’t expect to be put in with the Championship and League One sides. We’ll start at the bottom and work our way up.
“Yes, we’ll be following a similar model to Toronto but we’re not wanting to do what they’ve done, spend big to get through the divisions.
“And there is a formal link to the Red Star football team, the ‘Crvena Zvezda’ brand has teams in shooting, fencing, chess and bridge!”
Rugby league and Serbia may sound as unlikely as Toronto pushing for a Super League place but the roots are there in the former Yugoslavian state after the club was formed in 2006.
Currently, they get about 300 fans for matches but there are hopes of four-figure crowds should they test their luck against British sides. They also want to play friendlies against Championship, League One or top amateur clubs.
Serbia would be the latest country to be represented after England, Scotland, Wales, Republic of Ireland, France, Canada and Russia.
Should Red Star be entered into the 2019 Challenge Cup, they are prepared to play all their games in England but are open to playing matches at the smaller ground next to the 55,000-capacity Rajko Mitic football stadium.
And Wright believes entry to the cup can be the springboard to promote further expansion of the 13-a-side code which has produced several Serbian players, with Stevan Nadeljkovic and Stefan Stevanovic having trials at Super League Warrington.
He added: “Catalans’ win could be the thing that kicks off expansion. Lots of teams want to test themselves and the cup could be the format to do it.”
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