Rugby union in Spain
| Rugby union in Spain | |
|---|---|
Spain playing Portugal
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| Country | Spain |
| Governing body | Spanish Rugby Federation |
| National team | Spain |
| First played | 1901 |
| Registered players | 51,123 |
| Clubs | 221 |
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National competitions
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Club competitions
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Rugby union in Spain is a growing team sport. As of 2014, there were 51,123 registered rugby union players in Spain, playing for 221 clubs in various divisions. The governing body for rugby union in Spain, the Spanish Rugby Federation (Spanish: Federación Española de Rugby), founded in 1923, joined the International Rugby Board in 1988. It is also a member of FIRA.
The Spanish national team plays in the European Nations Cup, a competition for second tier European rugby nations such as Portugal and Russia. Spain is ranked 21st in the world, and played at the 1999 Rugby World Cup. The national sevens team is now one of the 15 "core teams" that participate in each event of the annual IRB Sevens World Series, having earned that status at the 2012 Hong Kong Sevens.
Rugby was first introduced into Spain before World War I. However, subsequent events such as the Spanish Civil War, which was particularly violent in the sport's Basque and Catalan heartlands hindered its development. There are traditionally four main rugby playing regions in Spain: Madrid, the city of Valladolid in the Old Castile region, the Basque Country, and the region of Catalonia particularly around Barcelona.
The earliest recorded game in Spain was in 1901, when an Englishman, Stuart Nicholson, resident in Bilbao,
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