Rugby union in Russia
| Rugby union in Russia | |
|---|---|
Russia U19 (in white) playing Georgia U19 in 2009.
|
|
| Country | Russia |
| Governing body | Rugby Union of Russia |
| National team | Russia |
| First played | 1884, Moscow |
| Registered players | 21,670 |
| Clubs | 365 |
|
National competitions
|
|
|
Club competitions
|
|
Rugby union in Russia is a moderately popular sport. Russia is ranked 18th worldwide by the World Rugby, having over three hundred clubs and close to 22,000 players nationally. Russia has a professional domestic competition.
The Rugby Union of Russia is the governing body for rugby union in Russia. It was founded in 1936 originally as the Rugby Union of the Soviet Union, and a specifically Russian body was set up in 1966. The Rugby Union of Russia became affiliated to the International Rugby Board in 1990.
Rugby football in the Russian Empire pre-dated the Russian Revolution by a number of years, but it was only played sporadically. It appears to have been the first (non-indigenous) football code to be played in Russia, around a decade before the introduction of association football. Mr Hopper, a Scotsman, who worked in Moscow arranged a match in the 1880s; the first soccer match was in 1892. In 1886, however, the Russian police clamped down on rugby because they considered it "brutal, and liable to incite demonstrations and riots" Condemnation by the tsar's police probably deterred many people from playing, and records of rugby over the next thirty years are sparse. Some rugby union was still being played in 1908, however the first "official" match took place in Moscow in 1923.
Because of the Russian Revolution, some Soviet/Russian players emigrated and/or ended up playing for foreign sides, a notable example being Prince Alexander Obolensky (Александр Сергеевич Оболенский) who played for Oxford and England in the 1930s - he was the scorer of 2 tries on his England debut in their win over New Zealand in January 1936. His noble birth precluded him from playing in his home country and his family had fled the country when he was only a year old.
...
Wikipedia