Jarryd Hayne announces NFL retirement, aims for Olympic Games

World Rugby have responded regarding this. “World Rugby notes the announcement that Jarryd Hayne wishes to pursue new sporting challenges with the Fiji Rugby Sevens team and has moved to address speculation regarding the player’s availability under Regulation 21 to play Sevens,” a statement read on Monday. “World Rugby is committed to the highest-possible anti-doping standards. The WADA-compliant World Rugby Regulation 21 mirrors the requirements of the World Anti-Doping Code and the WADA International Standard for Testing and Investigations. “It does not require a player to be included in a testing pool for a defined period of time prior to selection if they are being selected for international competition for the first time. This position is entirely consistent with World Rugby’s approach to other cross-over athletes, including other ex-NFL athletes coming into rugby. “Therefore, Hayne would be eligible for the London round of the World Rugby Sevens Series subject to all other regulatory and registration matters being met. “He would also be immediately included in World Rugby’s pre-Rio 2016 risk-based testing programme, which since January 2016 has included a comprehensive programme of targeted in and out of competition blood and urine testing on players likely to compete in Rio. “The pre-Games programme also includes regular additional screening for substances such as ESAs and human growth hormone, and both steroidal and haematological athlete biological profiling.”

It may be about tying him into fiji for XVs ... Even if he doesnt make the Olympics playing a tourney for Fiji in 7s also ties him into Fiji for XVs ...

Playing one tournament in 7s for fiji locks him into representing Fiji for life .. in 7s and Xvs ..

wrong. unfortunately some people wanting publicity didnt read the rules. World Rugby has clarified. “World Rugby notes the announcement that Jarryd Hayne wishes to pursue new sporting challenges with the Fiji Rugby Sevens team and has moved to address speculation regarding the player’s availability under Regulation 21 to play Sevens,” a statement read on Monday. “World Rugby is committed to the highest-possible anti-doping standards. The WADA-compliant World Rugby Regulation 21 mirrors the requirements of the World Anti-Doping Code and the WADA International Standard for Testing and Investigations. “It does not require a player to be included in a testing pool for a defined period of time prior to selection if they are being selected for international competition for the first time. This position is entirely consistent with World Rugby’s approach to other cross-over athletes, including other ex-NFL athletes coming into rugby. “Therefore, Hayne would be eligible for the London round of the World Rugby Sevens Series subject to all other regulatory and registration matters being met. “He would also be immediately included in World Rugby’s pre-Rio 2016 risk-based testing programme, which since January 2016 has included a comprehensive programme of targeted in and out of competition blood and urine testing on players likely to compete in Rio. “The pre-Games programme also includes regular additional screening for substances such as ESAs and human growth hormone, and both steroidal and haematological athlete biological profiling.”

The rule is very wordy and complicated and is here http://www.worldrugby.org/wr-resources/WorldRugbyDIR/Handbook/English/pubData/source/files/Regulation_208.pdf The base of it is that while someone who has previously played XVs may change their rugby nationality via 7s, anyone who has played a world series event in the year before an olympics, or a regional 7s olympic qualifier, or the olympics itself, is tied to that team for life. The playing 4 legs issue was related to XVs elegibility ... with the Olympics in 2016 and the World CUp in 2015 World Rugby were worried that countries may try to nationalise players who had already played for another union (for example a player who plays 15s at prop) by putting him on the field for 1 minute in a sevens tourament). They therefore decided that while players who have played for a national union in sevens may change 7s nationality after a 3 year stand down period (as long as they hadnt played in an olympics or olympic qualifer), to change their XVs eligibility they had to play at least 4 Olympic events. "The International Olympic Committee has a passport rule and the IRB changed its eligibility regulation to reflect that, but only for Sevens tournaments, which were regarded as Olympic events – there are nine between the beginning of next month and the end of May. It said that, in respect of the Rio Games, there had to be a stand-down period of at least 18 months before a player could appear for a new country and that he could not represent that nation in any other form of the game until he had appeared in an Olympic event. The IRB set up a regulations panel to look at Olympic eligibility and on Thursday it ruled that a player, subject to the passport condition, had to appear in at least four Olympic events before his or her nationality change was complete. That would mean Armitage, who was last week named in a 74-strong France training squad, would need to appear in four of the Sevens World Series events this season to qualify for Les Bleus at 15-a-side level." There is also an additional rule "8.12 Once the Player has represented the Union of which he is a national, in an Olympic Event, he shall thereafter be tied to that Union for all forms of the Game and in all events" In other words, once you have played a regional Olympic qualifier or World Series Event the year before an olympics (the top 4 teams in the world series get automatic olympic qualification so they are considered Olympics events), you are tied to that team for life.

The IOC does have some of its own rules, for example anyone competing must have the passport of the country they are representing, and must not have competed for a different country in international competition for at least 3 years. However, international sporting federations with sports in the Olympics can also have their own rules in addition to the two rules stated above. For these Olympics World Rugby have allowed players to swap international allegiance, provided they had not played for their original country for 3 years. However, this dispensation was simply because the rules were not defined until 2013, and because of the possiblity of legal problems because of the disparity between World Rugby and IOC rules, and of a player being able to claim he played 7s or XVs for another country without knowing that would affect his ability to play rugby in the Olympics. World Rugby have said that for following Olympicsthe ability to change countries will not apply.

Hayne is locked into Fiji forever in rugby if he plays for them in the London leg of the World Series (or the Olympics or any other interantional sevens tournament for fiji) … Rugby currently only allows you to represent one country for life … and if you play in the national team, national B team, or national 7s team of a country you can never represent another country. World Rugby did allow people who had played 7s or 15s for one country to qualify for another country for this Olympics (as in the case of the Samoan fullback at the last RWC who had previously played for NZ 7s), however this dispensation is only for this Olympics. The reasoning behind the dispensation for this Olympics is that rugby hadnt been an Olympic sport in recent times, Olympic qualification rules do allow people to change countries between Olympics. and Olympic rugby representation criteria were not defined until around 2013 … with the idea that it wasnt fair to limit someones Olympic participation for rugby if the rules had not even been defined when they player for another country. The international representation criteria for rugby are being born in a country, 3 years residency in a country, or a parent or grandparent from a country. Qualification rules for the Olympics are having a passport of a country you wish to compete for and a 3 year standown period from competing for any other country (the Olympics does allow people to compete for as many different countries as they wish, as long as they have a 3 year standown period before the Olympics from competing for their former country. So World rugby decided to allow 7s players to qualify for a new country, as long as they had not played for their former country for 3 years. In the interests of not having a player play for one country in 7s and another in XVs, they decided that changing allegiance via 7s would also change XVs allegiance. After this Olympics rugby players will not be able to change interantional allegiance via 7s .. i.e. it is again one country for life

samisoni viriviri - he was MVP in 7s world series 2014. ryan has called him back into the squad

ARU does not know what to do with outside backs, FFS, they let Nemani Nadolo go..

the '4 legs' is for those that have already played 'international union' for another nation..basically only 3 players have used this loophole, 2 of them play for samoa now (from NZ) and one for england (from NZ)...Hayne does not need to play a single tournament to qualify for fiji 7's...he just needs to have a fiji passport (which he does) and a coach that will select him without having him play one tournament..if he misses out this weekend but still wants to play, Ryan will test him out at a local 7's tournament before rio..

maybe your anti league talk on here for the last decade is the reason for the silly question. you really do want it eradicated

He will but only if he is capped for Fiji (15's), SBW played as a Marquee (foreign export), If hayne plays one Pacific Nation Cup game for Fiji, he automatically becomes a 'local' players thus allowing him to join any french club that wants him without the restriction of 'quotas' on money...Toulon might have him since they are losing their fullback, Delon Armitage to Lyon next season..

lol nah, french clubs are quite picky and they refuse to release fijian players for longer than a week (tuisova and nayacalevu)..for nakarawa, he had to go back to scotland to play his last 2 games for the club (semi finals) before he alos moves to france..

Fiji 15's coach John McKee confirmed 2 weeks back that a known 'NRL' player wants to play for the flying fijians, he didn't mention a name..so its quite likely its Hayne since no other fijians in NRL look interested in returning for fiji (koroibete will play for australia) so this could rule out hayne for the wallabies but might also rule him out for a return to NRL..i think he might move to france for Top14 and since he would be a capped fijians, he falls in the local player rule thus can get paid as a 'local' allowing him to be paid more.. ..

Tuisova

As his Dad is Fijian he should automatically have citizenship. He would qualify under the Kolpak agreement as a local player if he went to France. That's what Sonny Bill used when he went to Toulon so he didn't have to go through visa apps and foreign player quotas

Shame on you Journo's for being so gullible in taking Haynes Manager/agents PR spin. As talented as JH is he has no chance of being good enough to break into Fiji 7's team in the time frame needed to make the Olympics. Its only a ploy to get a NRL contract. I hope Haynes manager buys you all a big lunch on behalf of his client......

The IOC has it right. If you are a passport carrying citizen of a country then you can represent that country at the Olympic games. Rugby invented its own eligibility rules to account for the Home Nations which are not real countries. They are part of Great Britain hence the residency and one country rule for rugby. Inadvertently this created a second rugby market allowing players to represent countries that they are not passport carrying citizens of: see Virimi Vakatawa, Quade Cooper, Sean Maitland and so on. It's become so stupid that England will not select some its best GB passport carrying citizens - like Stefan Armitage - because they live and play their rugby in France. Instead the select a kiwi as their Captain - Dylan Hartley. Ireland is not a country either. It's a Rugby Union spanning a nation Northern Ireland and a country the Republic of Ireland (Eire). Go figure.

It was a slight inconsistency between World Rugby regulations and IOC regulations that created an exception to the "One country" rule World Rugby had enforced. It wasn't a deliberate thing, they became aware of it and - so as not to get offside with the IOC - they allowed it (though it will not be the case in 2020 apparently) and accepted that it would mean that player could also play XV's for the second country. I don't think they had to play 4 legs though, any appearance in a qualifying tournament would suffice.

It's the IOC's rule. You have to stand down or not play for one country for 3 years prior to looking at switching.