More women turn to rugby as female sports decline

By Victor Angula |

More and more women are now getting into sport codes traditionally meant for males such as football, rugby and hockey – with women rugby in Africa having seen a growth of more than 300% over the last decade.

With FIFA reporting that it has 29 million names of women soccer players on its global database, the latest craze is rugby.

In 2012 women rugby players in Africa were said to number some 50 000, but the number has shot up to 260 000 female rugby players in 2018.

If football is associated with physical injuries, kicks in the abdomen, and head knocks, rugby is even worse. Hard tackles, scrums and elbow hits over the mouth are part of the rugby game, so that only a woman who possibly has no mother will want to play such sport.

But NAMDIA says that sponsoring Namibia’s Rugby Women’s National Team is one of the best things to do. The company has announced a sponsorship of N$133,750 for the team’s on-and-off-pitch kit for the team’s match against Zambia taking place on 13 November 2021 in Windhoek.

With the match taking place at the Hage Geingob Stadium, Namibia and Zambia will bring the 2021 African series of women’s 15s test matches to a close. A total of 11 countries were involved in this series in 2021. The purpose of the series was to asses levels of play amongst women’s teams on the African continent.

2022 will see the start of a new fully structured African competition to qualify African representatives to the new global Women’s 15 (WXV) competition launched by World Rugby.

With this sponsorship, “NAMDIA Foundation remains committed to promoting sports in the country as it instills a culture of unity, discipline, commitment and hard work, which are traits that build a strong national identity,” says NAMDIA’s spokesperson Ms Beverley Coussement.

In the photo: NAMDIA announcing its support for the national rugby team. From left to right: Clarky McKay (NAMDIA GM for safety and security), Fulchen Bock (Women’s Team captain), Christel CJ Kotze (Women’s Team coach), Alicia Gertze (Women’s Team vice-captain) and Corrie Mensah (President of Namibia Rugby Union).