JEDDAH, 6 May 2007 — Dubai is to stage the 2009 World Cup seven-a-side rugby tournament. The International Rugby Board (IRB) Council has awarded the showcase of 7s rugby to the Arabian Gulf Rugby Football Union. The tournament, which will be the first to incorporate a women’s competition, will be played in Dubai in February 2009.
IRB Chairman Dr. Syd Millar made the announcement at the IRB’s annual meeting of the Council in Dublin following a vote that brought to a close the selection process that began in June 2006. Dubai beat Australia 14 votes to 10 in the second and final round of voting.
No clear majority was reached in the first round and therefore the top two; Arabian Gulf and Australia progressed to the second round, with the IRB Council selecting Arabian Gulf as Rugby World Cup Sevens 2009 Host Union.
David Skidmore, chairman of the Arabian Gulf Rugby Football Union and leader of Dubai’s bid could barely conceal his delight.
“It is wonderful news to be selected as Host Union. The Arabian Gulf may be one of the smaller unions, but everyone has worked extremely hard on the bid and we are confident that we will deliver a tremendously successful Rugby World Cup Sevens tournament in Dubai in 2009.”
He added that Dubai had a strong history of hosting successful and well-attended Rugby Sevens tournaments and was sure that everyone in the city would be extremely excited with today’s news.
Dr. Millar said: “The council members were extremely impressed with the Arabian Gulf Rugby Union bid and I am sure that Dubai will host a wonderful tournament having staged a successful IRB Under-19 World Championship in 2006.”
Dubai has a proven track record of staging major international events and has both the infrastructure and ability to stage a tournament of this scale. There is a strong rugby community within the city and the annual Emirates Airline Dubai Sevens has grown to become one of the most popular, colorful and well attended on the IRB World Sevens Series calendar.
Rugby World Cup Sevens 2009 will be the fifth Rugby World Cup Sevens tournament. The inaugural tournament was held in Scotland in 1993 with tournaments following in Hong Kong in 1997, Argentina in 2001 and again in Hong Kong in 2005.
Sevens rugby, pushing to be included as an Olympic sport alongside other team sports including football, has a large following. The Rugby World Cup Sevens 2005, held in Hong Kong, was an outstanding success. A capacity crowd of 120,000 fans attended the three competition days and the event was broadcast to over 450 million homes.
Rugby World Cup Sevens 2009 will be the first to include a women’s tournament that will run alongside the men’s competition and will consist of 24 men’s and 16 women’s teams. The inclusion of a women’s tournament is an exciting development for the women’s game which is experiencing unprecedented interest following the success of last year’s Women’s Rugby World Cup.
The history of rugby 7s formally kicked off in 1970 with a handful of fans scattered along the touchline of a piece of land donated to the fledgling event by the late Sheikh Rashid Bin Saeed Al-Maktoum. The Staffordshire Regiment were crowned as the inaugural Dubai Rugby Sevens champions, capping a successful weekend of rugby featuring sides from the UAE, both military and civilian.
In 1995 saw the first matches played on grass followed a year later by Dubai hosting a qualifying round of the Sevens World Cup when Fiji provided a taste of what was to come at the finals in Hong Kong four months later.
Now an annual fixture on the sevens rugby circuit, the tournament attracts the cram of sevens and some 15-a-side players and is witnessed by millions on worldwide television.
