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,
History of rugby union payment of players, which resulted in the formation of the separate code of rugby league, that the name "rugby union" was used to differentiate the original rugby code. For most of its history, rugby was a strictly amateur football code, and the sport's administrators frequently imposed bans and restrictions on players who they viewed as professional. It was not until 1995 that rugby union was declared an "open" game, and thus professionalism was sanctioned by the code's governing body, World Rugby—then known as the International Rugby Football Board (IRFB). Although rugby football was codified at Rugby School, many rugby playing