World Rugby’s Brett Gosper says inclusion at the Olympics is boon for the global game

Next year in Rio, at the Olympic Games, rugby marks a return after a 92-year absence, and though it is in the sevens format, rugby bosses feel it could be vital for its future growth as a sport, writes Osman Samiuddin.

Gulf Legends (dark blue) take on Airbus (light blue stripes) during Day 1 of the Dubai Rugby Sevens on Thursday. Victor Besa for The National

Dubai // Following on from what most are calling the most successful Rugby World Cup in history, the sport stands at the very start of a potentially seminal period.

Next year in Rio, at the Olympic Games, rugby marks a return after a 92-year absence, and though it is in the sevens format, rugby bosses feel it could be vital for its future growth as a sport.

“It is a very intense period where we go from biggest World Cup in history, which was a huge success, straight into a fantastic new season of the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series,” said Brett Gosper, the chief executive of World Rugby.

Gosper was speaking in Dubai at the opening round of the series, and ahead of a new report that finds that Olympic inclusion will have a greater long-term impact on the sport than the Rugby World Cup.

The report, Breaking New Ground, is the product of a partnership between HSBC and The Futures Company, a consultancy, and will be made public in full early next year.

An initial finding reveals that sevens has opened up the game in new markets on every continent and that Olympics inclusion, which was decided in 2009, was proof of this spread.

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Gosper said the Olympics is a “huge opportunity for us,” because it “allows the sport to find its way on to the curriculum of schools in countries around the world that do not normally think about rugby, or colleges in the US and elsewhere.

Read more: Catch all of The National's Dubai Sevens preview coverage here

“It means more money coming into the sport through governments, which we estimate in last cycle to be about £12 million [Dh66.2m] collectively, plus money you receive for actually appearing. The Olympic spotlight just raises the profile of sport in countries which haven’t seen rugby so much.”

Four-time Olympic champion sprinter Michael Johnson, Clive Woodward and Jason Robinson, a coach and player in England’s 2003 World Cup-winning team, are among several influential voices interviewed in the report, which claims that rugby’s global participation has increased by 50 per cent in less than a decade. There are now more than 100 full national member unions and 17 associate members.

Robinson said the lure of playing in the Olympics could even attract big names from rugby union.

“I played in two codes and three World Cups but one thing I never got an opportunity was to play in the Olympics,” Robinson said. “So for these guys now, it is an opportunity to do something nobody has done before. To be the first players to compete for a gold medal.

“It’s getting the guys talking, getting them excited. Everybody wants to play in the biggest tournaments. A lot of 15s players, seeing sevens in Rio, they want to change. They want to be part of a very special year.” ​

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