The expense of funding international sport has been highlighted by the publication of the programme for the HSBC World Women’s Rugby Sevens Series.
Ireland re-qualified as a core team in the series when finishing third at the Qualifying tournament held at UCD this summer and the experience will certainly help to develop the team.
The issue is that Dublin was very much an outlier in terms of venues and the team will now travel on an exotic world itinerary to compete against the best.
Dubai on December 1st and 2nd will be followed by Sydney in February, Kitakyushu in Japan in April and Victoria in Canada in May.
The only European Leg of the series will be in Clermont Ferrand in France next June.
All together that makes for a punishing travel schedule totalling 86,102 kilometres, and a hefty travel and accommodation bill for the IRFU.
It will be interesting to see what kind of revenues accrue from the tournament but in a year which culminates in the hosting of the Women’s Rugby World Cup in Dublin and Belfast there can be no doubting the serious financial commitment that the IRFU are making to the Women’s game.
In 2015/16 that amounted to €1.75 million in cash terms. In the coming season that figure will rise again.
It is expenditure which it is right to be made to develop the sport but it should never be taken for granted.
As long time supporters of the push for parity of esteem between men’s and women’s sport we have to tip our hat to the IRFU for this level of support.
