The Campeonato Uruguayo de Rugby – named "Copa
Amarok" due to sponsorship reasons, is the main competition of Uruguayan
rugby union
Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its m ...
league system. It includes the first, second and third division competitions. It was played for the first time in 1950.
History
Rugby was introduced to Uruguay as early as the late 19th century, but did not really take off in formal terms until the mid-20th. The spur for this was Carlos E. Cat,
[Richards, p164, Chapter 9 ''From Muller to Mias''] who helped establish the Club Championship in 1950, and would become the first president of the
URU
Uru or URU may refer to:
Language
* Uru dialect of Central Kilimanjaro, a Bantu language of Tanzania
* Uru language, the extinct language of the Uros, an Amerindian people
* Uru of Ch'imu, an extinct language of the Uros, an Amerindian people
...
in January 1951.
[ The first Club Championship was contested by Old Boys, Colonia Rugby, and multisport clubs such as ]Montevideo Cricket Club
The Montevideo Cricket Club (abbreviated "MVCC") is a Uruguayan sports club based in Montevideo, established in 1861 by English immigrants. Its predecessor had been the now defunct "Victoria Cricket Club", founded in 1842. (MVCC) and Carrasco Polo (which supplied two XVs).[ This was successful enough to lead to the establishment of the Uruguayan Rugby Union on 31 January 1951, with Cat as president.
Over the years, various other clubs would join the Championship, including Los Cuervos (the Crows) at the end of the 1950s, ]Old Christians
Old Christian ( es, cristiano viejo, pt, cristão-velho, ca, cristià vell) was a social and law-effective category used in the Iberian Peninsula from the late 15th and early 16th century onwards, to distinguish Portuguese and Spanish people atte ...
at the beginning of the 1960s, as well as Champagnat and El Trébol de Paysandú in the 1970s, and Pucaru in the early 1990s, as well as La Cachila, Trouville, and Colonia Rowing.
Current teams
Teams participating at the 2014 Torneo Apertura:
Champions
Titles by club
Bibliography
* Richards, Huw ''A Game for Hooligans: The History of Rugby Union'' (Mainstream Publishing
Mainstream Publishing was a publishing company in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded in 1978, it ceased trading in December 2013.Charlotte WilliamsMainstream to cease publishing 1 March 2013, The Bookseller.com' (Retrieved 30 December 2016) It was ass ...
, Edinburgh, 2007, )
Notes
References
External links
Uruguayan Rugby Union
{{Rugby union in Uruguay
Rugby union leagues in Uruguay
Sports leagues established in 1950
1950 establishments in Uruguay
Rugby union
Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its m ...