World Rugby Regulation 8 Change Has Ramifications for USA

08.09.2024

World Rugby has confirmed a change to Regulation 8 which will have a marked effect on the game in the USA.

Regulation 8 deals with how players are eligible to play for a national team. Among the issues it addresses are these:

1. Once you play once for your national 15s team, national 7s team, or a designated national 15s second team (for example, the USA Falcons), you are locked into that national team.

2. You can switch 15s national teams (after a stand-down period) or 7s teams to play in the Olympics (stand-down period might be shortened) as long as you switch to play for a country you were born in or a parent or grandparent was born in. When you switch, however, that's it—you get one switch.

3. You can qualify for a 15s national team through residency.

And it's the residency thing that has changed.

For many years the residency requirement has been that you live in a country for three years. The problem with that is that World Rugby felt three years wasn't long enough. World Rugby also had trouble tracking players. If you/re from Australia and are trying to establish residency in the USA, what happens when you visit your family in Australia for Christmas? If you spend too long outside the USA you can see your residency clock re-set to zero.

So the rule has been changed, and overall it is going to benefit those who move to the USA and want to, eventually, play for the USA.

The new rule states:

"Regulation 8.1(c) requires a Player to be registered with a Club, Union or Rugby Body for a period of 60 consecutive months immediately preceding the time of playing. There is no requirement for a Player to be remunerated for their participation with the Club, Union or Rugby Body but the player must be registered with that Club, Union or Rugby Body in order to establish eligibility pursuant to Regulation 8.1(c)."

So this means you don't have to always be in the country in question; it says you need to be registered with the relevant union (or club within the union) for five years in order to become residency-eligible for a country. And, the other part of it is, you can't then register to play somewhere else.

So they are simply using the registration systems already in place to police the issue. Visit your family over Christmas as long as you want; just don't play a rugby game while you're doing it, and you're good. This also addresses the collegiate issue which hit the USA some years ago when World Rugby concluded (and, seriously, this is what they said) that a player from overseas who went to college but his parents paid his bills was "technically" still resident in the country his parents were living in.

That has been changed, but it's all a bit more simplified now. A rugby player who attends college in the USA and plays rugby during that time will be well on his or her way to establishing residency even if that player spends school breaks back in his original home country.

World Rugby Regulation 8 Change Has Ramifications for USA

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