Sport RUGBY
Rugby is becoming increasingly popular in Africa for both genders but it is women’s rugby that is really taking off. There are several programmes that are designed to showcase the women’s game. In South Africa, writes Mushtak Parker,
the women’s game is now set to reach a different, higher level.
Spectacular take-off for women’s rugby in Africa
One of the interesting side events at the French Rugby Championship final at the Stade France in Paris in June (which Clermont Auvergne won 22-16 against RC Toulon), was the presentation of an official tie to newly-elected French President Emmanuel Macron by Abdelaziz Bougja, the Moroccan president of Rugby Afrique – the administrative union established in 1986 by World Rugby, the sport’s international governing body, to promote and develop it in the rising continent.
Macron, a keen rugby fan like many of his predecessors including Jacques Chirac, who was a French rugby international, promised to wear the tie on his official trips to Africa. Interestingly, the one area that Rugby Afrique is making inspired inroads in is promoting the game among girls and women. Rugby is probably the fastestgrowing sport, for both genders, in Africa today and despite religious, social and cultural conservatism, has attracted a lot of female enthusiasm.
It is no longer unusual to see schoolgirls from Morocco, Tunisia, Kenya, Senegal, Nigeria, Namibia, South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe playing rugby at school as part of the sports curriculum.
The qualification of the Kenya women’s team for the Rugby Sevens Tournament at the Rio Olympics in 2016 added to the appeal and glamour of the sport. The new opportunity rugby provides for
‘Women’s rugby is growing steadily here and we are proud of the developments in the women’s game in the last few years.’ - Jurie Roux, SA Rugby CEO
young players to shine on the world stage is being enthusiastically embraced.
World football, while hugely popular, is beset with perennial issues of corruption, betting scandals and mismanagement in general. By contrast, world rugby is clean, transparent and according to Abdelaziz Bougja – who is also a board member of World Rugby – uniquely character building.
Rugby Afrique’s ‘Get Into Rugby’ programme is in fact a springboard for women’s rugby. According to Bougja “a girl who plays rugby, who makes new acquaintances there, who discovers the values of this sport and who takes pleasure in playing, will become one day a woman and a mother who will pass on this passion to her own children.”
The aim it is seeking to achieve is that all the African governing bodies should make women’s rugby development one of their priorities, show leadership and build the required infrastructure for the game to flourish, and generate role models for young girls. Not surprisingly, the proliferation of the game has been steady if not spectacular – 41 African nations are affiliated to Rugby Afrique, more than half as full members and the rest as associate members.
The stakes are indeed high – not only do they get financial and technical support from regional development offices funded by World Rugby, but they also participate in several competitions, of which the Rugby Afrique Gold Cup is the most significant. The top two teams will automatically qualify to play in the next Rugby World Cup in Japan in 2019.
The 2017 Gold Cup in which the top six African nations (except South Africa) are competing, will culminate in a final at the end of July. Africa’s iconic rugby champion South Africa is of course one of those iconic giants of world rugby. Who can forget the 1995
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