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I have just returned from a trip to the nations around the Black and Caspian seas. I was able to investigate the state of rugby in three of them, Turkey, Romania and Georgia.
Although promoted this year and being beaten 12-20 by Finland, rugby is not a popular sport in Turkey. It seems to be centred in the south at Antalya which is a holiday area and the game played by university students and ex-pats.
There is a team in Istanbul called The Ottomans and Turkey currently plays in the European 2D division, the second lowest.
In Romania, rugby was extremely popular until 1990 and the nation beat France on several occasions. However, the communist dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu, loved rugby and sponsored it. After the revolution rugby was perceived as a communist sport and the people rejected it.
Romania is still strong and has appeared in every Rugby World Cup but the crowds do not attend games like they did, A new national rugby ground has been built to hold 15,000 but the largest crowd to watch a match has been 5000, a far cry from the 20-30,000 of the past.
Another problem is that all good players get offered good money to play in France and this weakens the local competition. One local club in Constanta has folded but the army, police and university clubs remain strong. It will be interesting to see if Romania can recover from this slump.
It is the exact opposite in Georgia. The game has a huge following at the moment. There are several reasons for this. Rugby is similar to a local sport called lelo (the national rugby team is called the Lelos in respect) and players can adapt to rugby quickly. Georgia is undefeated in the current European Rugby Championship and the national soccer team has been dreadful in recent performances.
Georgia suffers the same problem as Romania in that the good players go to France but the local sides have remained strong as new players emerge to fill the vacant spots. It has been said it would be easier for everyone if the Romania-Georgia internationals played in France.
I met a Georgian man who had two sons, the younger has just signed a contract to play in France and the elder is off to coach and play in Germany. The younger is eligible to play for Romania or Georgia but has not yet made up his mind. It will probably be the first to select him.
There is very little rugby presence in the other two Caucasus nations, Azerbaijan and Armenia. Both nations have entered the European competition at some time or other in the lowest division but in the few games scheduled for them they have either forfeited or lost.
Armenia is no longer a member of European rugby but Azerbaijan is with a playing strength of 220 listed. I found no rugby at all while I was in these two countries nor any interest.
The only nation in the area I did not visit was Bulgaria. However, rugby has a strong presence here with 2700 registered players and plays in the 2D division of the European championships and ranked 90th in the world.
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