Rugby Europe
Initiated by the French and German rugby union
a meeting was organized with representatives from
nine other countries to establish
an international rugby federation to counterbalance the British
dominated IRFB on Jan 02, 1934. Catalyst was the exclusion
of France from the Five Nations Tournament in 1932, in
which France did not return until 1947.
Eventually the Fédération
Internationale de Rugby Amateurs was
constituted by BEL, ESP,
FRA, GER, ITA, NED, POR, ROU and Catalonia on
Mar 24, 1934 in Hannover.
1956 MAR joined the FIRA as first non-European country.
The FIRA rose rapidly and at the end of the 1980s it has member unions
on all continents.
After an agreement of IRFB and FIRA a year before the FIRA got one vote in the
IRFB Council in 1995. Two years later FIRA accepted the IRFB
as world federation and begun to transform itself into a regional organization
for Europe.
Renaming to Union Européenne de Rugby on May
29, 1999 this transformation was formally finalized with the
name anew changed to FIRA-AER (Fédération Internationale de Rugby Amateurs -
Association Européenne de Rugby)
and the acceptance of European members only (reducing the number of
member unions from 60 to 35) on Dec 08, 2000 at the congress in
Biarritz.
To eliminate the complex term of FIRA-AER the congress on Jun 20, 2014 voted for the much simpler name Rugby Europe.
1960: 14 member unions
1980: 21 member unions
1996: 60 member unions
2018: AND, AUT, AZE, BEL, BIH, BLR, BUL, CRO, CYP, CZE,
DEN, ENG, ESP, EST, FIN, FRA, GEO, GER, HUN, IRL, ISL, ISR, ITA,
LAT, LIE, LTU, LUX, MDA, MLT, MNE, MON, NED, NOR, POL, POR, ROU, RUS, SCO,
SLO, SMR, SRB, SUI, SVK, SWE, TUR, UKR, WAL
Chairmen
| 24.03.1934 - 21.02.1948 | Roger Dantou FRA |
| 21.02.1948 - 22.05.1954 | Alfred Eluèze FRA |
| 22.05.1954 - 16.09.1962 | René Crabos FRA |
| 16.09.1962 - 06.10.1967 | Jean Delbert FRA |
| 06.10.1967 - 17.06.1989 | Marcel Batigne FRA |
| 17.06.1989 - 13.12.1997 | Albert Ferrasse FRA |
| 13.12.1997 - 21.05.2013 | Jean-Claude Baqué FRA |
| 21.05. - 05.07.2013 | Jean-Louis Barthes FRA; interim |
| 05.07.2013 - | Octavian Morariu ROU |
Secretaries General
| 24.03.1934 - 22.05.1954 | Edmond Laurent FRA |
| 22.05.1954 - 25.09.1955 | Robert Debon FRA |
| 25.09.1955 - 27.09.1969 | Jean Supervielle FRA |
| 27.09.1969 - 15.12.1990 | Jean-Claude Bourrier FRA |
| 15.12.1990 - 09.12.2016 | Jean-Louis Barthes FRA |
| 09.12.2016 - | Gilbert Celli SMR |
Last modified: 09.02.2023