Rugby Football - Global Status of Rugby Codes

Global Status of Rugby Codes

Rugby union is both a professional and amateur game, and is dominated by the first tier unions: Argentina, Australia, England, France, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Scotland, South Africa and Wales. Second and third tier unions include Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Fiji, Georgia, Japan, Mexico, Namibia, Peru, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Samoa, Spain, Tonga, the United States, Uruguay and Venezuela. Rugby Union is administered by the International Rugby Board (IRB), whose headquarters are located in Dublin, Ireland. It is the national sport in New Zealand, South Africa, Wales, Fiji, Samoa, Tonga and Madagascar, and is the most popular form of rugby globally, with the seven-a-side version of the game, known as Rugby sevens, having been admitted into the programme of the Olympic Games from Rio de Janeiro in 2016 onwards. There was a possibility sevens would be a demonstration sport at the 2012 London Olympics but many sports including sevens were dropped.

In Canada and the United States, rugby union evolved into gridiron football. During the late 1800s (and even the early 1900s), the two forms of the game were very similar (to the point where the United States was able to win the gold medal for rugby union at the 1924 Summer Olympics), numerous rule changes have differentiated the gridiron-based game from its rugby counterpart. Among unique features of the North American game are the separation of play into downs instead of releasing the ball immediately upon tackling, the allowance for one forward pass from behind the site of the last tackle on each down, the evolution of hard plastic equipment (particularly the football helmet and shoulder pads), a smaller and pointier ball that is favorable to being passed but makes drop kicks impractical, a generally smaller and narrower field measured in customary units instead of metric (in some variants of the American game a field can be as short as 50 yards between end zones), and a distinctive field (shaped like a gridiron, from which the code's nickname is derived) with lines marked in five-yard intervals.

Rugby league is also both a professional and amateur game, administered on a global level by the Rugby League International Federation. In addition to amateur and semi-professional competitions in the United States, Russia, Lebanon, Serbia, Europe and Australasia, there are two major professional competitions—the Australasian National Rugby League and the European Super League. International Rugby League is dominated by Australia, England and New Zealand. Other nations from the South Pacific and Europe also play in the Pacific Cup and European Cup respectively.