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How sevens' Olympic status gives German rugby a boost

Roar Rookie
4th August, 2015
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Germany playing Belgium in XVs - but sevens is where it's really at (Photo: Wiki Commons)
Roar Rookie
4th August, 2015
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2535 Reads

Access to increased public funding, more media exposure and being backed by a very wealthy benefactor might result in a German team competing on rugby sevens’ biggest stages.

Very few rugby enthusiasts in traditional strongholds of the oval ball game would associate Germany with the sport of rugby, however that might be about to change.

» Olympic rugby sevens – men’s schedule
» Olympic rugby sevens – women’s schedule

While the game’s 15-a-side version as well as the sevens version remain very much a niche sport in Germany today, rugby already has a considerable footprint across the country. More than a hundred clubs, about 14,000 registered players and more than a century of rugby history are hardly negligible.

While football dominates Germany’s sporting landscape to a degree that is almost unfathomable beyond the borders, other sports have a mighty struggle on their hands competing for attention and financial support.

The German football federation (DFB) counts almost seven million members organised in 25,324 clubs. Germany’s second biggest team sport handball only boasts about a tenth of the number of men and women organised in the DFB.

Accordingly, the amount of airtime dedicated to the world game dwarfs that of any other sport on German TV.

Given rugby’s reputation in Germany of being a very rough sport, metamorphosing it into a participatory sport widely played across the country would be a hard task.

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As much as rugby circles like to tout their game as one ‘for all shapes and sizes’, fewer people would actually like to be tackled by an imposing 115kg number 8 than watching it in HD while enjoying a cold beer.

That leaves rugby striving for a similar position in the sporting landscape as hockey currently has in Germany, where big matches regularly fill large arenas in certain cities and significant airtime is devoted to the sport, even though there are only 27,000 active players in Germany.

However, thus far there simply is no significant media coverage of rugby in print or on TV.

The club game is dominated by teams based in the two German rugby strongholds Hannover and Heidelberg. There the sport has a solid footing, and generates at least some coverage. Only recently has there been an uptake in terms of reports on television or in major newspapers nationwide.

The national team’s promotion into the first division of the European Nations Cup, assuring regular games against more experienced sides such as Georgia and Romania, was widely reported on the back pages and so have recent successes in sevens.

Considering Germany struggled significantly on the field against teams that in turn have been dubbed minnows at the XVs World Cup, but managed to pull off some very impressive results at the European level in sevens, focussing on the shorter version of the game seems to be the way forward.

Due to rugby sevens’ recently-gained Olympic status, they could now have access to government funding and Germany’s 19 Olympic bases across the country.

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Furthermore, both the sevens and XVs national teams have been profiting from considerable investments made by the Heidelberg billionaire and owner of a beverage company, Hans Peter Wild.

Enhanced preparation through participations at elite level competitions such as the Dubai or the Vegas Sevens, or hiring renowned coaches like former England conditioning coach Brett Davison within the last 12 months had not been possible without the financial commitment of the man behind Capri Sun.

The latest performances have been vastly improved and the recent professionalisation of training conditions have facilitated them.

In the three tournament 2015 European Grand Prix Sevens series, which concluded three weeks ago in Exeter‘s Sandy Park, the German team finished fourth on equal points with Russia and only behind Spain, England and France.

That in turn means getting the better of world series regulars like Portugal and Wales. This leaves Germany with a shot at qualifying for the world series at the qualifying event, which takes place on the sport‘s biggest stage, the Hong Kong Sevens, next April.

For the team‘s most prolific points scorer, Fabian Heimpel, competing in Hong Kong is a childhood dream coming true. Furthermore the entirely amateur German team last weekend also managed to secure a place in the 2016 world repechage tournament, which determines the 12th and last participant in the Rio Olympics.

While that goal should rather be regarded as a long shot, Germany might very well compete in the Sevens World Series in a year’s time.

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Manuel Wilhelm, former stalwart of the German XVs national team and current technical director of the German rugby federation, sees the performances at the GPS tournaments and the olympic qualifier as the result of years of hard work paying off.

Prior expectations had been exceeded according to Wilhelm, and the coming months will be about preparing as thoroughly as possible for the Hong Kong world series qualifier and the olympic qualifier.

The build up for the two biggest fixtures in the 2016 German rugby calendar will include a participation at the Central Coast Sevens in Australia. There the German team will face strong competition when playing hosts Australia, Canada and a New Zealand development side for the first time.

Raising the overall profile of the sport will not be an easy task though, when taking into account the sport’s current niche status.

The fact that Eurosport has committed to showing all 2015 Rugby World Cup games and also started promoting the event is an improvement for followers of the game, since currently no matches are shown on pay or free TV at all. Rumours about the station’s interest in also broadcasting the world series, in case Germany qualified, would indeed be a further boost for the sport’s profile.

To further increase rugby’s standing, the German federation undertook efforts to host a regular sevens world series event taking place during Munich’s famous Oktoberfest starting in 2016.

According to the federation’s officials, the bid was backed by local blue chip companies, and considering BMW’s sponsorship of the Springboks, Wallabies and France, it seems very likely that the Munich based company was behind the efforts.

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The bid was ultimately not successful, losing out to Vancouver, however World Rugby noted the quality of it.

In case of a further World Series expansion, Munich might be very well back in the mix. Given the availability of the Olympic Stadium and the huge amount of visitors from rugby mad countries during the Oktoberfest, a successful event is all but unthinkable.

When it comes to goals for the future development of the sevens national team, the federation’s technical director Mr. Wilhelm emphasises that the hard work of the past years had to be continued.

Increasing the player depth and even further improving training conditions was paramount in order to confirm the latest successes on the pitch. In the medium-term, successfully qualifying for the 2018 rugby sevens World Cup in San Francisco is very much on the radar for the man in charge of the sevens national team.

Rugby enthusiasts in the aforementioned strongholds of the game might as well familiarise themselves with the novelty thought of seeing the Germans compete at the very top level of their game.

And to alleviate some concerns of those enthusiasts in England: Germany winning a rugby sevens final on penalties against England does not seem very likely, despite all recent improvements.

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