The Spanish play rugby! Who knew? In this football-obsessed country, rugby union is so far down the sport pecking order, you’d be forgiven for failing to notice it at all. But here in Villajoyosa/La Vila Joiosa, just up the coast from Alicante, rugby is alive and kicking.

CR La Vila played last season in the elite division of Spanish rugby – quite something for a little town like ours. OK, so they got relegated, but watching a home game at their stadium is a great way of spending a Sunday afternoon. 

Sadly, La Vila began 2022/3 facing some serious financial problems and most of their best players left. Which meant they were on the wrong end of some real hammerings by the top teams. They finished in bottom spot and headed for the drop.

But on the plus side, La Vila have a great little stadium at el Estadio del Pantano, a few minutes drive out of town on the road to Orxeta. I’m guessing more than a few clubs back in the UK would love the facilities they have here. Match tickets are €10  and kids under 16 get in free.

The crowd is usually a friendly mix of local supporters and expat or tourist Brits – plus a few French fans –  getting their rugby fix. Buy yourself a beer or something from the barbecue and enjoy the match.

For British fans, watching rugby on the Costa Blanca in warm sunshine certainly beats the biting wind and driving rain back home. And it’s great that La Vila, a small-town team based such a long way from Spain’s rugby heartlands in the north, are able to compete at this level at all. Certainly they don’t have the big-name sponsors that finance the major clubs in Valladolid, Burgos, Barcelona and Madrid.

The mens’ first team is a mixture of home grown players with a sprinkling of overseas talent, mostly from South America.

See how they’re doing here, or follow the club on their website on Twitter Instagram and Facebook. Check the fixture list for the rest of the 2022/2023 season here.

La Vila run women’s teams – they’ve recently combined forces with Alicante club Akra – and also squads for a whole range of age groups, so it’s a real community club.

La Vila also hosted a European beach rugby tournament on the town’s Playa Centro in July 2022 – cool video here. And the La Vila stadium also hosts the Benidorm Sevens in May with teams from across Europe – details of the 2023 tournament here.

Clearly rugby is never going to take the place of football – or even basketball – in the heart of your average Spanish sports fan. The Spanish movie star Javier Bardem, who played rugby himself in his younger days, was once quoted as saying; “being a rugby player in Spain is like being a bullfighter in Japan”. He had a point.

Los Leones and the World Cup scandal

A massive sore point with Spanish rugby fans. Let me explain. In March 2022, the men’s national team (Los Leones) qualified for the rugby World Cup for only the second time in their history. See the celebrations here.

But the joy didn’t last long. Romania accused Spain of fielding an ineligible player, the South Africa-born prop Gavin van den Berg, in two matches. World Rugby held an inquiry, found Spain guilty, deducted them 10 points and hit them with a big fine. Spain were out of the World Cup and Romania took their place.

Astonishingly, this was the second time in successive World Cup campaigns that Spain had been found guilty of breaking the rules on player eligibility. Unbelievable!

Spain appealed against their World Cup disqualification but predictably, World Rugby came back with a big fat ‘no’ at the end of June 2022 – read more here.

Van den Berg’s club, Alcobendas of Madrid, was accused of falsifying a copy of his passport, allegedly without his knowledge.

The case hinged around the amount of time van den Berg had spent in Spain to qualify as a Spanish international. It’s supposed to be three years, with the player spending at least 10 months a year in his/her new country. Social media posts apparently showed van den Berg in South Africa when he was supposed to be in Spain.

Alcobendas were demoted from the Division de Honor, kicked out of the Copa del Rey and fined. The president of Spanish rugby resigned.

Spain in the world rankings

Up until this point, you could say men’s rugby was a growing sport here, but Los Leones have now slumped to 20 in the world rankings. They play in the second tier of European rugby, up against the likes of Georgia (easily the strongest side) Belgium, Portugal, Romania and – until the Ukraine invasion – Russia. Belgium, Germany and Poland joined this coming season.

Spain has a decent men’s Sevens team too. They’ve competed at the Olympics and even managed to beat the mighty All Blacks in a World Rugby Sevens Series match in March 2019. Highlights here are worth a watch – the Spanish players look as if they can’t quite believe it! And they also won the Rugby Europe Sevens championship in June 2022 –  celebrations here.

Las Leonas

The Spanish women’s team – Las Leonas – are officially ranked 12th in the world. That’s higher than the men and ahead of top rugby countries like South Africa. Sadly, Las Leonas didn’t manage to qualify for the World Cup in New Zealand in 2022.

They won the 2023 Rugby Europe championship – a three-cornered tournament with the Netherlands and Sweden (who replaced Russia). The Sweden match was played here in La Vila in February 2023 – Spain notched up a thumping 90-5 victory.

Super Cup

The Super Cup started in the 2021-2 season and involved new franchised teams competing across Europe under the umbrella of Rugby Europe. There was one Spanish team involved; a newly-created franchise called Castilla y Léon Iberians, made up of players from the two Valladolid clubs (VRAC and El Salvador) plus Burgos.

They competed against teams from Portugal (Los Lusitanos), Belgium (Brussels Devils) and Holland (Delta) in the western conference. There was also an eastern conference with clubs from Georgia (Black Lion and RC Batumi), Israel (Tel Aviv) and Romania (Wolves). Russia were kicked out after the Ukraine invasion.

The whole thing was a knockout competition designed to raise the level of the club game in European countries outside the Six Nations.

OK, something needs to happen to bridge the gap between the Six Nations and the rest of Europe. But personally, I’m not a big fan of artificial franchises, of clubs that aren’t tied to their communities. 

For a 2022-3 fixture list and more on the Super Cup, see here. Not sure what is happening for next season though.

Talking rugby in Spanish

If you’re ever in a Spanish rugby conversation, here are a few words to help you through. One or two might be Argentinian equivalents. If I’ve got any wrong, feel free to leave a note in comments!

Want to know more about La Vila?

Check out these posts:

• My top ten things to do in Villajoyosa
• Best places to eat and drink in La Vila
• Exploring the old town of Villajoyosa
• Villajoyosa’s amazing beaches