Great news!
A huge spike in the amount of women playing rugby has been announced by World Rugby, and it's fantastic to see.
According to World Rugby's year in review 2018, of the 9.6 million people playing the sport globally, 2.7 of those are women.
That's a 10% rise from 2017, it's refreshing to see that a traditionally male dominated sport is heading towards parity.
There are now 581,000 officially registered female players across World Rugby’s member unions, a massive 28 percent rise from the previous year.
Special year for global game with 800 million-strong global interest driven by youth audiences in emerging markets #GetIntoRugby #RugbyBuildsCharacter
Read more: https://t.co/VDvn60b9KC pic.twitter.com/XMPbPamhSB
— World Rugby (@WorldRugby) July 10, 2019
So what's the insane growth down too? World Rugby Chairman Sir Bill Beaumont explained:
“2018 was another special year for rugby as we watched the sport continue to prosper and grow both on and off the field," he said.
“From a women’s rugby perspective, 2018 was a breakthrough year as we began implementation of our ground-breaking strategy to accelerate the development of women in rugby at all levels.
“Progress was evident with increased participation and engagement levels as well as in the governance of the sport, where we welcomed the first women onto World Rugby Council. We continue to strive for even greater parity in 2019.”
Here's hoping we continue to see growth in women taking on Rugby! We want to see a 50% split.
