The Rugby Europe Women's Sevens, previously the FIRA–AER Women's Sevens until 2013, is a series of regional championships for women's international

rugby sevens Rugby sevens (commonly known simply as sevens, and originally seven-a-side rugby) is a variant of rugby union in which teams are made up of seven players playing seven-minute halves, instead of the usual 15 players playing 40-minute halves. R ...

in Europe. Prior to 2012, the annual tournament is held over two days, typically on a weekend in June, before the highest category tournament was reorganized as the Sevens Grand Prix Series, modeled after the format of the

World Rugby Sevens Series The SVNS, known as the HSBC SVNS for sponsorship reasons, is an annual series of international rugby sevens tournaments run by World Rugby featuring national sevens teams. Organised for the first time in the 1999–2000 season as the IRB World ...

. The tournaments are sanctioned and sponsored by

Rugby Europe Rugby Europe is the administrative body for rugby union in Europe. It was formed in 1999 to promote, develop, organise, and administer the game of rugby in Europe under the authority of World Rugby (the sport's global governing body). However, it ...

History

Rugby sevens Rugby sevens (commonly known simply as sevens, and originally seven-a-side rugby) is a variant of rugby union in which teams are made up of seven players playing seven-minute halves, instead of the usual 15 players playing 40-minute halves. R ...

— also known as 7-a-side, or 7s — is a short form of the sport of

rugby union Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-English-speaking world, Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that orig ...

that was first played in 1883. The first (men's) internationals took place in 1973. As

women's rugby union Women's rugby union is a full contact team sport based on running with the ball in hand. The same laws are used in men's rugby union with the same sized pitch and same equipment. Women's rugby has become popular recently. These days, women's r ...

developed in the 1960s and 1970s the format became very popular as it allowed games, and entire leagues, to be developed in countries even when player numbers were small, and it remains the main form the women's game is played in most parts of the world. However, although the first

women's international rugby union Women's international rugby union has a history dating back to the late 19th century. It was not until 1982 that the first international fixture ( test match) took place. The match was organised in connection with the Dutch Rugby Union's 50th anni ...

15-a-side test match took place in 1982, it was not until 1997 before the first women's international 7s tournaments were played, when the 1997 Hong Kong Sevens included a women's tournament for the first time. Over the next decade the number of tournaments grew, with almost every region developing regular championship competitions. This reached its zenith with 2009's inaugural women's tournament for the Rugby World Cup Sevens, shortly followed by the announcement that women's rugby sevens will be included in the Olympics from 2016. The first official regional 7s championship for international women's teams from European was the European Women's Sevens Championship held in 2003 in Lunel,

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

. Since then, the regional 7s championships have periodically served as pre-qualifying competitions for the Rugby 7s World Cup, or other sevens tournaments.

Tournaments

The following are details of all regional women's international championships played in Europe, listed chronologically with the earliest first, with all result details, where known (included are the FIRA–AER Women's Sevens and other official regional championships, e.g. the Europe Emerging Nations tournaments).

Championship Series

Team records for Championship Series

Trophy

Conference

Other Tournaments

References

External links

*
European European Women's Sevens at Rugby7.com
{{European Championships Women's rugby sevens competitions

Women A woman is an adult female human. Before adulthood, a female child or adolescent is referred to as a girl. Typically, women are of the female sex and inherit a pair of X chromosomes, one from each parent, and women with functional u ...

sevens Women's rugby union competitions in Europe for national teams 2003 establishments in Europe Recurring sporting events established in 2003