Rugby Football Union Announces £10M 'Action Plan' For Women, Girls' Game

The Rugby Football Union announced a £10M ($13.2M) Action Plan for the women and girls' game "designed to attract a further 100,000 players to the game over the next four years," according to Mick Cleary of the London TELEGRAPH. The RFU intends to set up 350 more active women's teams by '21. The aim of the project is "to get more women playing more often." There has been a "significant upturn" in the numbers playing the game over the last four years. Figures show that more than 10,000 women and girls have been exposed to contact rugby since '14. There are currently 512 women and girls' teams in England and 27,500 existing players. The aim is to "introduce the sport to some 100,000 females with a view to having a long-term uptake of about 25% of them, almost doubling the current figure." RFU Rugby Development Dir Steve Grainger said, "We have called it an Action Plan rather than a strategy as we want to make it happen" (TELEGRAPH, 11/13).