Rugby union in Paraguay Rugby union in Paraguay Rugby union in Paraguay is a secondary sport. With 4,355 registered players and twenty clubs, the country currently ranks 37th worldwide and 4th in South America. The Paraguayan Rugby Union (Union de Rugby del Paraguay) was founded in 1970, and joined the IRB in 1989. The first recorded game of rugby in the country was in the 1930s, between players from Cerro Porteño and Olimpia (the country´s two biggest football clubs). Further development of the game was sporadic. Asuncion Rugby Club, the country´s first official rugby cluby, was formed in the late 1960s by two Britons,
Rugby union in Italy rugby union. In the 1960s the Italian Rugby Union had their rival sport, rugby league, hampered by threatening to ban rugby league players from playing rugby union for life. In the 1980s, a peculiar set of economic circumstances arose, which helped bolster the game further. In an effort to promote the game, sinking money into rugby became virtually tax-free, and large amounts of sponsorship money went into the game, from companies as large as Benetton which set up their own club sides. Benetton Treviso for example was able to use this money to produce a dramatic rise in standards. Players