Last countries without rugby

[victorsra Profile Website]

Updating after the news from Asia Rugby

I know Morocco is suspended, but it will return, so they don't fit in the list. I "relegated" Ethiopia and Cape Verde because couldn't find any references that Rugby Afrique is still doing some work there. I also scraped Albania in the countries with national teams because it is already more than 10 years since it was formed. Also promote Cuba because rugby is indeed part of their Instituto Nacional de Esporte.

The section "Countries working with sports organizations (continental unions, NOCs, Sports Ministries...) " is important. If there's reference that rugby is linked to official entities, please report.

EDIT: Updated with Comoros news.

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UPDATE OF COUNTRIES THAT AREN'T MEMBERS OF WORLD RUGBY OR THE 6 CONTINENTAL UNIONS

List of IOC-eligible countries

Former continental unions members:

EUROPE: Greece (suspended/not listed anymore, but alive https://www.facebook.com/hellasrugby), Armenia (dissolved, reborn https://www.facebook.com/armrugby/)

NORTH AMERICA: St. Kitts and Nevis (unclear)

AFRICA: Mauritania (suspended/not listed anymore)

FORMER FIRA: North Korea (out in 1997)


Countries with other rugby organizations membership (non-World Rugby member) https://www.yallarugby.com/arab-rugby-f ... dubai-uae/

Arab Rugby Federation: https://www.yallarugby.com/arab-rugby-f ... dubai-uae/

AFRICA: Sudan, Libya


Indic Ocean Rugby Association: http://lagazettedescomores.com/sport/fédération-comorienne-de-rugby-/-le-rugby-de-locéan-indien-accueille-les-comores-.html

AFRICA: Comoros


Countries working with sports organizations (continental unions, NOCs, Sports Ministries...)

EUROPE: Kosovo (Sports Ministry) https://twitter.com/KosovoRugby/status/ ... 4904318978

NORTH AMERICA: Cuba (Instituto Nacional de Deportes) http://www.inder.gob.cu/descargas/docum ... 20-WEB.pdf

ASIA: Vietnam https://www.asiarugby.com/2019/12/14/pr ... o-vietnam/

OCEANIA: Kiribati (Get Into Rugby)


Countries with active national teams in the past 10 years - 7s at least

NORTH AMERICA: Aruba (2019), US Virgin Islands (2016), Haiti (2015), Puerto Rico (2012?)


Countries with rugby clubs but no national team in the past 10 years

ASIA: Myanmar, Bhutan, Tajikstan, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, Timor Leste

AFRICA: Ethiopia, Angola, Gambia, Liberia, South Sudan, Djibouti, Cape Verde, Guiné Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Somalia

NORTH AMERICA: Antigua & Barbuda

EUROPE: North Macedonia, Albania (League now)

OCEANIA: Micronesia, Palau



Countries with at least active beach rugby

ASIA: Maldives


Countries without active rugby (no references)

ASIA: Yemen, Turkmenistan;

AFRICA: Eritrea, São Tomé and Príncipe;

NORTH AMERICA (RAN zone): Suriname*, Grenada, Dominica;

OCEANIA: Marshall Islands ;

*Not sure

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Non-IOC-eligible territories (included countries with disputed recognition)

Countries with active national teams in the past 10 years - 7s at least

EUROPE: Gibraltar, Jersey, Guernsey

OCEANIA: Tokelau


Territories recognised by the French Rugby Federation

NORTH AMERICA: Saint Martin, Saint Barthélemy, Saint Pierre & Miquelon

AFRICA: Mayotte, Reunion


With rugby clubs but no national team in the past 10 years

EUROPE: Northern Cyprus, Transnistria, Åland, Isle of Man, Alderney, Sark

NORTH AMERICA: Anguilla, Bonaire, Saint Martin, Saint Barthélemy, Saint Pierre & Miquelon, Greenland (tag/touch indoor rugby)

OCEANIA: Northern Marianas, Bougainville (independence process)


Without active rugby (no references)

EUROPE: Vatican**, Faroe Islands, Artsakh, Abkhazia*, South Ossetia*

NORTH AMERICA: Montserrat, Sint Maarten, Saba, Sint Eustatius

AFRICA: Western Sahara, Somaliland, Saint Helena & Dependencies

OCEANIA: Norfolk Island, Christmas Island, Cocos Islands, Pitcairn Islands

SOUTH AMERICA: Falkland Islands*


*Not sure about local rugby scene

**Could be IOC-member but it isn't

[Canalina Profile]

Comoros entered in AROI (Association de Rugby Ocean Indien) seven months ago and they plan to take part to the Aroi 7s 2021.
They are the sixth member of AROI after Madagascar, Reunion, Mauritius, Mayotte (all usual participants of the Aroi 7s) and Seychelles, which instead seems absent from the rugby scene. So the only Indian Ocean nation/territory now missing in AROI are the Maldives.
The next Indian Ocean Games (2023) will be hosted right by the Maldives, so maybe also them will try to field a team in rugby

http://lagazettedescomores.com/sport/fédération-comorienne-de-rugby-/-le-rugby-de-locéan-indien-accueille-les-comores-.html

https://www.facebook.com/Comores-Rugby-944558312553575

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Ocean_Island_Games

[Canalina Profile]

A recent update on Albania rugby: the Tirana RK is totally focused on rugby league, right now, and they are going to take part to the greek championship next season, as already written in this forum before. There's at the moment just an other club in Albania, the Ilirët RC in the same Tirana, but the last derby between the two teams, last winter, was played 9 vs 9, so I suspect that at least the Ilirët is quite short of players. A third club could be created in Vlora

https://www.vizionplus.tv/cudia-ekipi-i ... gen-greke/

[victorsra Profile Website]

A recent update on Albania rugby: the Tirana RK is totally focused on rugby league, right now, and they are going to take part to the greek championship next season, as already written in this forum before. There's at the moment just an other club in Albania, the Ilirët RC in the same Tirana, but the last derby between the two teams, last winter, was played 9 vs 9, so I suspect that at least the Ilirët is quite short of players. A third club could be created in Vlora

https://www.vizionplus.tv/cudia-ekipi-i ... gen-greke/

Are Ilirët and Vlora playing Union?

Thanks, I've just updated the last post with Comoros news.

[Canalina Profile]

Tirana vs Iliret was played with the 9s league rules (9s is the homologue of 7s in league), while Vlora club is still just an idea.
So no rugby union at the moment in Albania, it seems.
Anyway I think/hope that it's still all very fluid and that they all could return to play union if there will be a useful chance about

[victorsra Profile Website]

If there's a North Macedonian club playing the Kosovo Rugby Union Championship, why not an Albanian club? Seems logical.

[victorsra Profile Website]

Bougainville will enter a crucial moment of its process of independence from Papua New Guinea https://thediplomat.com/2020/07/bougain ... -election/ The referendum was nonbinding and now they have the election of the new president (governor) of the territory, that is expected to start the independence negociations.

Anyway, Bougainville already has a local rugby union: https://www.facebook.com/Bougainville-R ... 468117758/

[Chester-Donnelly Profile]

Rugby league is the more popular code in Bougainville. No doubt they'll be in the rugby league world cup before too long.

[victorsra Profile Website]

A very important document, the rules to apply for WR membership: https://pulse-static-files.s3.amazonaws ... nglish.pdf

2.0 Jurisdiction
2.1 Be a member of a Regional Association for two years (One year as an Associate Member / One year as a Full Member) (See schedule 1)
2.2 Be from a Country which is either a Member State of the United Nations or a Country with a National Olympic Committee recognised by the International Olympic Committee.

Well, all UN members are also IOC members, so with it is basicaly needed to be recognised by the IOC.

[victorsra Profile Website]

Kiribati Touch Rugby Association changed name to Kiribati Rugby. I understood they are in charge of promoting rugby there https://www.facebook.com/pages/category ... 307628195/

[Canalina Profile]

A Rugby World (the magazine) article about St. Pierre et Miquelon, the two french little islands near Terranova

https://www.rugbyworld.com/countries/fr ... ris-112059

[victorsra Profile Website]

I think we've missed this news, but the Bahrein RFC won in March the West Asia Premiership title: https://www.yallarugby.com/mens/west-as ... gue-table/ The other clubs were from the UAE. Bahrein RFC's page: https://bahrainrfc.com/ I hope we see Bahrein soon as Asia Rugby member.

Bahrain Rugby Club started life as a section of the British Club in 1971, becoming its own separate entity in 1974. With more than 3,000 members, Bahrain has grown to become one of the largest and formidable clubs in the Gulf region.

They are the West Asia Premiership Cup holders of 2017/18 Gulf Rugby season and the Western Clubs Champions League title holders of 2018/19.

Bahrain Rugby Club are the only non UAE team to play in the West Asia Premiership as they compete along side teams from Dubai and Abu Dhabi from the United Arab Emirates.

Oman's Muscat RFC played the third division https://www.yallarugby.com/mens/divisio ... gue-table/

I thought Kuwait club played it too, but not in 2019-20 apparently.

[Canalina Profile]

New club in Skopje, Macedonia, "the first one providing trainings for the kids"
They will start from the juniors and apparently they have an USA organization behind them

https://rugby.mk/en/

Curios note: "Macedonia" in italian language has also the meaning of "fruit salad"; wikipedia says that also the spanish language and the portoguese one (and maybe the french one) share the same meaning. The term should come from the Alexander the Great's macedonian empire, a babel of races, cultures and habits, as well as the fruit salad is a mix of many different types of fruit

[victorsra Profile Website]

New club in Skopje, Macedonia, "the first one providing trainings for the kids"
They will start from the juniors and apparently they have an USA organization behind them

https://rugby.mk/en/

They have support of the Skopje Wild Boars: https://rugby.mk/en/history/

[vino_93 Profile]

New club in Skopje, Macedonia, "the first one providing trainings for the kids"
They will start from the juniors and apparently they have an USA organization behind them

https://rugby.mk/en/

Curios note: "Macedonia" in italian language has also the meaning of "fruit salad"; wikipedia says that also the spanish language and the portoguese one (and maybe the french one) share the same meaning. The term should come from the Alexander the Great's macedonian empire, a babel of races, cultures and habits, as well as the fruit salad is a mix of many different types of fruit

In France, Macedoine isn't a fruit salad but a vegetables salad. You can find it everywhere, even in cans. You usually have carrots, white turnips, peas, green beans with mayonnaise. Sometimes potatoes too... Not my favorite, but a very classic of french cuisine.

And name seems to come from modern macedonia (greece and independent), due to the mixture of people there.

[victorsra Profile Website]

Cameroon and Greece don't appear anymore in the WR website as members https://www.world.rugby/organisation/me ... ber-unions Nigeria does.


But Cameroon still is a Rugby Afrique member: https://www.rugbyafrique.com/unions/

[Canalina Profile]

Mind-blowing paradox: Macedonia is the nation in Europe where rugby is less played but it's also the one the form of which more resembles (vaguely) an oval ball!

[Canalina Profile]

In fact there's a third club in Macedonia, the first formed: Rudar Miners Rugby Club
It's based in Probištip, 80 km east of Skopje

Luka37 had always wrote about it some pages ago in this same thread and someone other remembered it on facebook

https://www.facebook.com/rudar.rugby/

"Do you think there's a chance to see a Macedonia national team (7s or 15) in a near future?"

"Well, yes! We (Rudar) have a lot of young players, also the Wild Boars, but they also have Macedonian players that have played rugby in other countries, and they have couches with experience, witch is very good for development of rugby in Macedonia. There are chances for senior national team in near future, also U18 or U20, but first we need at least two more clubs, that we are working for".

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php? ... 0689872550

[victorsra Profile Website]

So it is Albania the country with less Rugby Union, right?