Rugby union in Portugal
| Rugby union in Portugal | |
|---|---|
Spain playing Portugal
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| Country | Portugal |
| Governing body | Portuguese Rugby Federation |
| National team | Portugal |
| First played | 1903 |
| Registered players | 5,877 |
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National competitions
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Club competitions
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Rugby union in Portugal is a growing sport, though still a long distance from association football. The sport is essentially amateur in Portugal, with some degree of semi-professionalisation in its top flight league and the national rugby union team. The rugby union teams in Portugal are mostly university sides, from Lisbon, Porto and Coimbra, with multi-sport clubs like Benfica and Belenenses having rugby union collectivities.
Rugby union in Portugal is administered by the Federação Portuguesa de Rugby. It was founded in 1926 and became affiliated to the International Rugby Board in 1988.
The origins of Portuguese rugby go back over a century, but it was only in the 1920s, and the 1950s that periods of consolidation occurred.
The first recorded Portuguese game occurred at Cruz Quebrada on the outskirts of Lisbon in 1903.
It was only in 1922 that the game began to be organised on a formal basis. The Anglo-Portuguese playing pool at this point had been severely depleted by the First World War, and so the onus fell back on the local population. In 1927, the clubs of Benfica, the Royal Football Club, Carcavelinhos, Ginasio and Sporting came together to form the Portuguese Rugby Federation.
In many cases, the players were students, or ex-students, some of whom had encountered the game abroad.
Portuguese rugby had once again been set back by the effects of another world war, but it was still dominated by students and ex-students.
Portuguese rugby was heavily influenced by French rugby in this period.
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Wikipedia