Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union or often just rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in England in the first half of the 19th century. Rugby involves running with the ball in hand. In its most common form, the game is played between two teams of 15 players each, using an oval-shaped ball on a rectangular field called a pitch. The pitch has H-shaped goalposts at both ends. The objective of the game is to score more points than the opposing team by scoring tries, conversion kicks, penalties, and drop goals. It is one of the two major codes of rugby football, the other being rugby league. Rugby union is a popular sport around the world, played by people regardless of gender, age or size. In 2023, there were more than 10 million players worldwide, of whom 8.4 million were registered. World Rugby, previously called the International Rugby Football Board (IRFB) and the International Rugby Board (IRB), has been the governing body for rugby union since 1886, and currently has 116 countries as full members and 18 associate members. In 1845, the first rules of the game were written by pupils at Rugby School; other significant events in the early development of rugby include the decision by Blackheath F.C. to leave The Football Association in 1863 and, in 1895, the split between rugby union and rugby league. Historically rugby union was an amateur sport, but in 1995 formal restrictions on payments to players were removed, making the game open to professionals at the highest level for the first time. Rugby union spread from the Home Nations of the United Kingdom and Ireland, with other early proponents of the sport including Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and France. The sport is primarily followed in the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, New Zealand, Australia, Italy, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, Georgia, Southern Africa, Argentina, and in more recent times, Japan, Korea, South America, the United States and Canada, its growth occurring during the expansion of the British Empire and through French proponents (Rugby Europe) in Europe. Countries that have adopted rugby union as their de facto national sport include Fiji, Georgia, Madagascar, New Zealand, Samoa, Tonga, and Wales. International matches have taken place since 1871 when the first game was played between Scotland and England at Raeburn Place in Edinburgh. The Rugby World Cup, first held in 1987, is held every four years. The Six Nations Championship in Europe and The Rugby Championship in the Southern Hemisphere are other important international competitions that are held annually. The Women's Rugby World Cup was first held in 1991, and the United States won the inaugural title. The Women's Six Nations Championship, first held in 1996 with just the four "home nations", is played annually alongside the men's counterpart. National club and provincial competitions include the Premiership in England, the Top 14 in France, the Bunnings NPC in New Zealand, the League One in Japan and the Currie Cup in South Africa. Other transnational club competitions include the United Rugby Championship of club teams from Ireland, Italy, Scotland, South Africa and Wales, the European Rugby Champions Cup in Europe, and Super Rugby in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands.
History Primitive forms of football included harpastum, played by the Romans, where two opposing teams competed to throw a large ball into an opposition net, fighting for possession of the ball. Medieval Irishmen played caid, carrying an inflated bladder and using arched trees as goals. The Welsh played an inter-parish game using a wooden ball called cnapan. Frenchmen played la soule and Georgians played lelo burti. "Football" as a game was well established by 1803 at Rugby School and by the 1830s, "running in" with the ball in hand was allowed but subject to hacking and "collaring".Former Rugby School student Albert Pell is credited with having formed the first "football" team while a student at Cambridge University. Major private schools each used different rules during this early period, with former pupils from Rugby and Eton attempting to carry their preferred rules through to their universities. A significant event in the early development of rugby football was the production of a written set of rules at Rugby School in 1845, followed by the Cambridge Rules that were drawn up in 1848. Formed in 1863, the national governing body The Football Association (FA) began codifying a set of universal football rules. These new rules specifically banned players from running with the ball in hand and also disallowed hacking (kicking players in the shins), both of which were legal and common tactics under the Rugby School's rules of the sport. In protest at the imposition of the new rules, the Blackheath Club left the FA followed by several other clubs that also favoured the "Rugby Rules". Although these clubs decided to ban hacking soon afterwards, the split was permanent, and the FA's codified rules became known as "association football" whilst the clubs that had favoured the Rugby Rules formed the Rugby Football Union in 1871, and their code became known as "rugby football". In 1895, there was a major schism within rugby football in England in which numerous clubs from Northern England resigned from the RFU over the issue of reimbursing players for time lost from their workplaces. The split highlighted the social and class divisions in the sport in England. Although the rules of the game were not a factor in the split, the breakaway teams subsequently adopted some rule changes and this became the separate code of "rugby league". The RFU's code thereafter took on the name "rugby union" to differentiate it from rugby league, but both versions of the sport are known simply as "rugby" throughout most of the world.
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