David Niu

Early life and rugby career

Niumataiwalu was born and raised in Sydney, and attended James Cook Boys Technology High School in nearby Kogarah. He is of Fijian descent.

Niu played rugby union for St. George Rugby Union Club from 1984 to 1989, playing a total of 250 first division games. He also represented Sydney, the New South Wales Waratahs and was a member of the Australian Barbarians, and captained the Australian College and University teams from 1984 to 1988. In 1986 he was one of three winners of the Ken Catchpole Medal. In 1987 he earned a spot on the Australian national rugby union team training squad for the 1987 Rugby World Cup.

Niu shifted to professional rugby league in 1989. In 1990 he was signed by the St. George Dragons of the New South Wales Rugby League premiership (now the National Rugby League), Australia's highest rugby league competition, as a scrum-half/halfback. He played for St. George for two seasons, appearing in a total of nineteen games and scoring two tries and one field goal. As a former Dragons player, Niu has been outspoken about the club moving away from Kogarah's WIN Jubilee Oval. He later played for the Villeneuve Leopards in France, and had spells with the Bramley and Bradford Bulls in the United Kingdom before retiring.

American career

In 1991, Niu met his future wife Donna Camac while on a St. George team retreat in Hawaii. He gained a release from the final years of his contract with the Dragons and relocated to her hometown of Philadelphia, where he took a job as a teacher at the Glen Mills Schools, a reform school for court-referred youth with an aptitude for sports. He worked to introduce rugby league at the school, drawing the attention of American rugby league enthusiast Mike Mayer. Niu and Mayer organized a U.S. national rugby league team for a trip to the 1992 Rugby League World Sevens in Sydney. After Mayer departed Niu continued developing the national team, bringing them to international competitions such as the 1995 Emerging Nations Tournament and a short tour of Australia in 1997.

During this time, Niu also played rugby union in the U.S. He was named to the United States national rugby union team, making eleven international appearances, including at the 1999 Rugby World Cup. In 2000 he became head coach of Philadelphia Whitemarsh RFC in the Rugby Super League, the highest level of rugby union in the United States.

In 1997 Niu was one of the founders of Super League America, the first major attempt to organize a domestic rugby league competition in the United States, and served as the new league's executive director. The organization managed the national team and launched a six-club domestic competition. On top of serving as head of Super League America, Niu was also player-coach for the Glen Mills Bulls (now the Aston Bulls), the most dominant team in the league. In 2000 Super League America reorganized as the United States Rugby League, and the following year it became the American National Rugby League.

In 2009 Niu was involved in a proposed American professional rugby league competition, the National Rugby League USA (NRLUS), though this failed to get off the ground. Niu was also heavily involved in planning the Atlantic Cup tournament, beginning in 2009, and in the United States being awarded the qualifying tournament for the final berth in the 2013 Rugby League World Cup.

AFL Global

In February 2013, Niu resigned from the AMNRL to take a position as president of AFL Global. The organization is an independent business venture that hopes to work with the Arena Football League to expand arena football to China and elsewhere around the world.