Player Numbers Pass 500,000 in South America Rugby

In an open letter posted on the Sudamérica Rugby website the organization’s President Carlos Barbieri proclaimed that player numbers have now passed the 500,000 mark in South America Rugby.

“we have exceeded half-a-million players throughout the region and we were the second World Rugby region in terms of the Get Into Rugby program, that has already reached a great number of new integrants over the year 2015.”

“There have been a total of 255,829 participants of which 164,089 were boys (64%) and 91,740 were girls (36%). This marks a growth of 150% in comparison to the period from 2012-2014,” noted Barbieri.

Barbieri is the head of the sport of rugby’s governing body covering South and Central America from the deep south of Chile and Argentina up as far north as Guatemala. Currently Sudamérica Rugby has thirteen members – Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela.

Membership is certain to increase as the sport continues to grow to include other countries within the region. Indeed, now in 2016, all countries in the Americas have rugby. In 2015 both Haiti and Honduras were involved in playing international rugby for the first time.

Honduras is moving towards playing in future Sudamérica Rugby international competition as is fellow Central American republic, Nicaragua. Bolivia and Suriname could well also both be additional future members. Haiti and the Dominican Republic are likely to be future members of Americas Rugby North (formerly NACRA) rather than Sudamérica Rugby.