United Arab Emirates Rugby Federation
United Arab Emirates Rugby Federation, or UAE Rugby, is the governing body for rugby union in the United Arab Emirates. It was founded in 2009 and organises and oversees local rugby, including the annual Dubai Sevens and Dubai Women's Sevens, as well as all UAE national rugby teams. UAE Rugby became affiliated to World Rugby in 2012.History
Prior to the establishment of a national governing body for UAE, rugby across the Arabian Peninsula was administered by the Arabian Gulf Rugby Football Union which had been founded in 1974 and oversaw rugby until the end of 2010 in six member countries: the UAE, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman and Qatar.
World Rugby's governance restructuring project for the West Asia region resulted in the AGRFU being broken up into separate unions for each member country. The UAE Rugby Federation was the first to be formed in 2009 and the UAE national team inherited the former Arabian Gulf team's world ranking. Other national unions for Bahrain, Qatar and Saudi Arabia were subsequently created.
