Rugby Union is one of my personal favorite sports. Although it does not feature in the Top 10 Most played sports in the world, it still have a large supporter base, and a lot of players.

Total Number of registered players in the world.

I am sure there are many more non-registered rugby players in the world, but according to the stats that are available there are 4,504,188 registered rugby players across the globe, from 98 different countries. I would never have thought that there are so many rugby playing countries around the world if we take into account that there is only 20 countries represented in the world cup.

Top 10 Countries with most registered players

England has by far the most registered rugby union players in the world with nearly 2 Million registered players. South Africa is second, with 660 000 plus players and in the third place we have France with around 300 000. Here is a list of the Top 10 followed by 11- 20.

Top 10 most registered players by country.

Information Source

11-20

Information Source

One of the things that caught my attention is that Australia, who have won the world cup a few times only have the 10th most registered players in the world. A very interesting fact is also that India has more than 22 000 registered rugby players. Maybe they will form part of the top nations in the world and be represented at the world cup soon.

Another interesting fact is that Georgia, who have been moving up the ranks over the past few years, and has been represented in the last few World Cups, are only number 51 on the list of countries with most registered users, which makes it an amazing feat to qualify for the world cup. Georgia only has 4181 registered rugby players.