Rugby football

Rugby union and rugby league are two types of team sports that are together referred to as rugby football.

It used to be common practise to refer to Canadian football and American football (to a lesser degree) as variations of rugby football. These days, however, such comparisons are much less common. Up until 1967, the organisation that is now known as Football Canada was called the Canadian Rugby Union. This is despite the fact that the rules of football have been distinct from those of rugby for well over half a century.

Rugby School in Rugby, Warwickshire, England is credited as being the birthplace of rugby football around the year 1845. However, variations of football in which the ball was carried and thrown date back to the Middle Ages (see mediaeval football). As former students of Rugby Football Club continued to play the game, its popularity grew across the British Empire in the 19th century and extended to further public schools in England.

Twenty-one clubs from the North of England left the Rugby Football Union in 1895 to form the Northern Rugby Football Union (renamed the Rugby Football League in 1922) at the George Hotel in Huddersfield over payments to players who took time off work to play ("broken-time payments"). This caused rugby league to become the first form of rugby football to become professional and pay its players. One hundred years later, in 1995, when the Rugby World Cup had been played in South Africa, rugby union became a professional sport. World Rugby is the governing body for rugby union, while the Rugby League International Federation is the governing body for rugby league (rugby league).