temporary relaxation of the regulations prohibiting rugby union players from contact with rugby league. In an extraordinary development a team representing rugby league met a rugby union equivalent in two matches, held to raise money for the Red Cross. Both games were held under rugby union rules; both were won by the rugby league side. In Australia, the war years produced large crowds, and financially at least, the sport did not suffer the hardships endured during the First World War. Nonetheless, the loss of many young men in fighting undoubtedly weakened the talent pool available. The defeat of France had serious implications for rugby league in France. The Vichy regime banned rugby league and forced players, clubs and officials to switch codes to union. Assets of the rugby league and its clubs were handed over to union. The consequences of this action still reverberate; the assets were never returned, and although the ban on rugby league was lifted, it was prevented from calling itself rugby from 1949 to the mid-1980s, having to use the name Jeu à Treize (Game of Thirteen, in reference to the number of players in a rugby league side). Late 1940s and 1950s The rules of the sport had continued to evolve, and until the 1940s there was no world governing body to oversee this and ensure consistency. Negotiations between the respective governing bodies were required to fix rules to be used for tours, though generally the other nations took their lead from the British authorities. For example, the field goal was banned by the New South Wales Rugby League in 1922, however this method of scoring was not officially recognised as being removed from the game until 1950, when the British authorities banned it. This situation endured until 1948, when at the instigation of the French, the Rugby League International Federation (RLIF) was formed at a meeting on 25 January 1948 in Bordeaux. The 1947–48 Northern Rugby Football League season's Challenge Cup Final was the first rugby league match to be televised. All spectator sports in the United Kingdom experienced a surge in interest in the years following the end of World War II and rugby league boomed. Large crowds came to be expected as the norm for a period of around 20 years. The total crowds for the British season hit a record in 1949–50, when over 69.8 million paying customers attended all matches.