Rugby Union in France
In France , rugby union (French: rugby à quinze ) is the second most popular sport after football and has been played since the early 1870s. The best teams play in the league Top 14 for the championship. The responsible association is the Fédération Française de Rugby (FFR). The south-west of the country is considered the stronghold of rugby.
history
In 1872 some British people living in France founded the first club, Le Havre Athlétique. A hybrid form of rugby and football, called combination , was initially played . The first club to play according to the standardized rules was the English Taylors RFC (rugby club of the English tailors) founded by British businessmen in 1877, followed a year later by the Paris Football Club. The rugby commission of the sports association Union des Sociétés Françaises de Sports Athlétiques (USFSA) began in 1890; at that time all sports were organized in a single association. The growing diversity and number of members led to the founding of the independent association Fédération Française de Rugby in 1919 and to the exit from the USFSA.
Rugby was a sport at the in Paris discharged Summer Olympics 1900 . France participated with a selection from the USFSA and won the gold medal. The national team's first game took place in Paris in 1906, losing 6:38 to the All Blacks from New Zealand . In 1910, the four British and French associations laid the foundations for the Five Nations tournament . At the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp , the national team surprisingly lost in the final against the USA , as well as four years later in Paris.
In 1932 the national team was excluded from the Five Nations tournament (until 1947); The reasons were disguised professionalism, increasing violence on the field and poor organization. As a result of the exclusion, the FIRA was founded under French leadership in 1934 to compete with the International Rugby Board . In the same year, the era of rugby league (French: rugby à treize ) began in France and many union players switched to the professional version. Rugby League began to outstrip rugby union. The Vichy regime stopped this development when it banned all rugby league games in 1941. Even if this variant was allowed again after the war, rugby union was able to regain and expand its supremacy.
In 1947 the national team was again admitted to the Five Nations tournament and won it for the first time in 1954. In 1978 the Fédération Française de Rugby joined the International Rugby Board. The French federation supported the proposed concept of introducing a world championship , against fierce opposition from the British federations. In 1995 the era of professional sport began in the French rugby union.
Competitions
The most important competition for club teams is the top 14 . The 14 participating teams each play a home and an away game against all other teams. The four best teams then play in the knockout system for the championship title; the winner of the championship final is French champions. The first championship was held in 1892 and won by the Racing Club de France ; teams from outside the capital were only allowed to participate from 1899.
The second highest league is the Pro D2 . Both Top 14 and D2 are organized by the Ligue Nationale de Rugby on behalf of the association . The association is solely responsible for the amateur championships, the highest amateur league is the Fédérale 1 . The Coupe de France and the Challenge Yves du Manoir , which were of great importance during the amateur era , will no longer be held .
The Heineken Cup , the most important cup competition at European level, occurs in France under the name H Cup due to stricter alcohol advertising laws . Two French teams have won this trophy so far: Stade Toulousain (1996, 2003, 2005, 2010) and CA Brive (1997). The second most important European competition, the European Challenge Cup , has so far been won by four French teams: CS Bourgoin-Jallieu (1997), US Colomiers (1998), AS Montferrandaise (1999), Section Paloise (2000), Biarritz Olympique (2012).
The national team is also called Les Bleus ("the blues") and is one of the best in the world. She takes part in the Six Nations every year (until 1999 Five Nations) and has won this prestigious tournament 23 times so far, eight times with a Grand Slam . She qualified for all world championships since their introduction in 1987 and was runner-up three times. Only in 1991, 2015 and 2019 did she not advance to the semifinals. The 2007 World Cup took place in France and the 2023 World Cup is planned for France.
Popularity and coverage
Rugby Union is particularly popular in the south-west of the country, while football is more dominant in the other areas of the country. There are more than 1,600 clubs with over 200,000 licensed players. Recently, the average number of viewers has risen sharply, by no less than 25 percent since the 2004/05 season. The record number of spectators is 79,604, set on March 4, 2006 when the teams Stade Français and Biarritz Olympique met at the Stade de France . This exceeded the highest level of Ligue 1 in football by more than 20,000.
The public and free-to-air television channel France 2 broadcasts all of the national team's international matches at the Six Nations tournament and in its own country. In addition, France 2 regularly broadcasts top games from the top 14. Canal + , the most important pay-TV broadcaster, also shows numerous international games, including those of the rugby championships in the southern hemisphere (Australia, Argentina, New Zealand, South Africa).
literature
- Tony Collins: The Oval World - A Global History of Rugby, 2nd ed., London 2016, ISBN 978-1-40-883157-1 (English)
- Dieter Kuhn u. Marcus Rosenstein: Rugby - Fight in Alley and Crowd, 3rd edition, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-87-892060-1
- Tobias Schenk: Political Effects of the Rugby World Cup in France, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-65-612141-1
- Huw Richards: A Game for Hooligans - The History of Rugby Union, Edinburgh 2007, ISBN 978-1-84-596255-5 (English)
swell
- ↑ Historic rugby milestones - 1870s
- ↑ Prohibition of Rugby League by the Vichy regime ( Memento of the original from May 11, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Rugby at the French watch TV
