Rugby and sport development in Brazil : from peripheral to centre stage

This chapter builds on the 'Sport Works' narrative adopted in Sportfor" Development (SfD) programmes. In doing so, one SfD case in Brazil, that is utilising the sport of rugby to foster positive social transformation in its participants, communities and society, is examined to demonstrate the ways in which rugby is making a difference. To help situate the unique context in which rugby developed in Brazil a short socio-historical context demonstrates the sport's remarkable ability to 'hold' on with never more than 1,000 players at any given time in its history (up until 1997), increasing to approximately 3,000 players by 2007. Although a thorough overview for the historical development of rugby in Brazil, and in particular SfD, is beyond the scope of this chapter (see Schulenkorf, Sherry and Rowe, 2016, for a more extensive review of SfD), some socio-historical context is required to locate rugby and SfD's importance as an extension of broader changes in social conventions and attitudes towards sport.