Spain

For the final of the King’s Cup, Valladolid came alive with tens of thousands of rugby fans, celebrating their city’s utter dominance of the sport. Spain could not only compete at rugby, but maybe conquer it too. If only they had the chance.

17th April, 2016. Twenty-six thousand people cram into Valladolid’s Estadio Jose Zorilla for the closest of sporting contests: two giants of a game barely separable on the field. The stadium is famed for many things: the footballing highs and lows of Real Valladolid, the club owned by Brazilian icon Ronaldo; the appearance of ‘King of Pop’ Michael Jackson to conclude his famous 1997 European HIStory tour; and for hosting several matches at the 1982 [football] World Cup.

But, five years ago, it was rugby that took centre stage in this north-western Spanish city. Unlike its English counterpart (at least the modern-day version), the Copa del Ray de Rugby, or King’s Cup, means something. Especially, when it’s played out by two dominant forces in Spanish rugby, who happen to share the same city: SilverStorm El Salvador and Valladolid Rugby Asociación Club Quesos Entrepinares [VRAC for short, with Quesos Entrpinares being the local cheese company that sponsors the team].

The King’s Cup was first won by Barcelona in 1926, and, 90 years later, the country’s media all had eyes on the capacity crowd, as El Salvador defeated city rivals VRAC in the all-Valladolid final. 

Amid the scenes that followed the 13-9 victory, a hush only fell over the crowd when the King Felipe VI marched onto the field, giving his royal seal of approval to the game and presenting El Salvador with the trophy that bears his name. This was Spanish rugby, surely on the crest of something very special.

Castile y Leon, the region in which Valladolid resides, is a two-hour bus ride north-west of Madrid, a journey that takes you from the capital’s urban sheen and high rises to Spain´s vast interior: endless green fields and rugged landscapes.

Arguably the birthplace of the modern Spanish state, the kingdom of Leon was founded in the tenth century before the unification of Castile y Leon in 1230 under Ferdinand III, who inherited the Crown of Castile and the separate Crown of Leon to create the modern Castile y Leon region we know today. 

A people involved in constant battles against the Moors and other Spanish Kingdoms developed a strong sense of regional identity that still continues to this day. Where the hot dry Spanish interior on its southern borders meets the intimidating landscapes of Picos de Europa and Espana Verde of the north, the región Castile y Leon guards the ancient pilgrim road of Camino de Santiago. Then and now, budding perigrinos would find refuge in the city of Leon but it is to the city of Valladolid, lying 80 miles south-east of Leon, where our rugby pilgrimage takes us in 2021.

We arrive in the city from Madrid not for a final on this occasion, (with the King´s Cup not commencing until later in the season) but for the first home game of Spain’s new professional super club, Castilla y Leon Iberians, which has seen the city’s two sides combine (together with Burgos). A squad made up largely of players from El Salvador and VRAC (including a light smattering of Burgos players) competes at the modest, but perfectly formed, 5,000-capacity Estadio Pepe Rojo, home of both VRAC and El Salvador. They are rugby clubs many English fans will be familiar with, both having competed in the Challenge Cup, facing the likes of Harlequins, Northampton Saints, London Irish and Newcastle. “Valladolid is a tough city but also loves its sport, we are a multi-sport city,” explains Miguel Ángel Torres [Teto], VRAC’s director of communications. “Football, handball, basketball and two rugby teams. Because of this, we have excellent relations with all sports and the council is supporting that multi-sport vision.”

Despite football’s pre-eminence across Spain, in this small corner of the country, rugby has a heartland. Not only are there two clubs in Valladolid but Catalonia also boasts two teams in the shape of Barcelona and Santboiana, and in neighbouring Basque Country there’s also Ordizia and Gernika, meaning half of the twelve-team top-flight comes from this part of Spain. Completing the division are two sides each from Madrid and Valencia, Ciencias in Seville, and Burgos.

Not that the titles are as evenly spread; in the past ten years, VRAC have won nine of the ten, with El Salvador winning the only one they missed in 2016 – part of a double-winning season. El Savador may not have the trophies of their rivals, they have been the main competition, with the league’s final being a solely Valladolid affair for five straight seasons until last season. In the King´s Cup, other sides have had more of a chance, with the two clubs taking just the four cup wins in the last decade (VRAC three to El Salvador´s one).

Their rewards were once met with Challenge Cup appearances, “but since professionalism,” Teto laments, “it is different. The money for just one team to compete simply isn´t there but if you put us together then you have eight provinces and one of the largest regions in Europe.”

The closest either has come to getting back into the Challenge Cup was in 2015, when VRAC finished bottom in the pool stages of the Continental Shield, losing to Timișoara Saracens of Romania and Grupo Desportivo Direito of Portugal, and El Salvador did slightly better by finishing second but still missed out on a Challenge Cup spot to Mogliano of Italy.

However, even that narrow possibility of getting into Europe’s second tier was shut by European Professional Club Rugby in 2019, as they discontinued the Continental Shield and, with it, extinguished any possibility of clubs such as VRAC or El Salvador getting into the Challenge Cup. A clear example that if you are not inside the magic six of European Rugby nations, you are not wanted. 

But Spain has always had the potential to compete, with over 35,000 players, and a club system numbering 48 sides from top to bottom of the rugby pyramid. What’s more, the eight-team Liga Iberdrola (the women’s top-flight) has boasted winners from Galicia to Andalucia, giving the game a much a broader geographical footprint across Spain’s vast land. 

Hence the motivation behind Rugby Europe’s new Super Cup and Castile y Leon Iberians. The competition itself brings together teams under the Rugby Europe umbrella, seven different countries and eight different franchises bidding to be the first winner next May. Lusitanos XV of Portugal, who beat the Iberians 34-19 at home in September, are today’s visitors. “We need this competition and we think it can be an attractive brand,” says Teto, when we talk before the match. 

The desire to move Spanish rugby towards professionalisation is not without its challenges. More than 2,000 arrive for the fixture – some covid restrictions are still in place – but there’s little interest from television, attendance is free, they’ve struggled for new sponsors (again, covid hasn’t helped) and, with finances still stretched, there hasn’t been financial support for the project from the Spanish Federation. Money has instead come from Valladolid council and the sponsors of all three clubs involved in the project, showing their commitment in these financially difficult times. 

The match itself isn’t short of quality and, although Iberians lose 13-20 to a free-flowing Lusitanos side, there’s a positive atmosphere around the ground. In the post-match presser, former French international, and current Lusitanos and Portugal manager Patrice Lagisquet offers his thoughts on the game and the open style of play that is emerging in Portugal. “We don’t want to coach it out of them,” he says. “They are a group of young talented players and by giving them the freedom to express themselves on the field, we will get the best results.” For Portugual, Lusitanos has been committed to as a crucial part of their national pathway, with nineteen of their tournament squad boasting ten or more international caps. 

As for Iberians, “It will take time,” Teto informs us, on building coverage and income. “People are used to watching El Salvador or VRAC, so getting them to come together and realise this is a part of both clubs will be the challenge. But we believe this can grow.”

For many of the fans, post-match takes place in the shadow of Valladolid’s 16th-century Renaissance-style cathedral, taking ‘communion’ in Rugby Bar La Central, a venue that acts as a shrine to Spanish rugby glories. 

Talk here often goes back to 2016, and not just for the 26,000 final, but also what happened two months later when nearly 100,000 people would witness Racing Metro defeat Toulon in the Top 14 final, remarkably hosted not in France, but in Spain, or 111 miles over the border in Barcelona’s Camp Nou, to be precise.

On the surface, it may seem odd that France decided to take its set piece south of the border but when you look beneath the surface, the cultural connections between the south of France and the Spanish frontier should make it of little surprise. 

Rugby first came to this region with the exhibition games of British navy crews, and it was through the French connection that rugby really established some roots in Spain. 

Basque country spreads across the border of southern France and northern Spain in the western Pyrenees, and rugby has filled its frontiers. In the south-west of France, the rugby heartlands of Bayonne lie at the heart of the French Basque country, with many towns on the border an infusion of French and Basque cultural life. Biarritz is another rugby hotbed where a multilingual community and cultural mix provides ties that bind in many cases more strongly than with their fellow Frenchmen in Paris.  

Nor is it just the Basque citizens who can find kindred spirits over the border, with modern-day Catalonia embroiled in the region’s long desire to break away from Spain and express its own independence. This defiant streak can be traced back to the eighteenth century with Catalonia declaring itself an independent republic, to the modern day political crisis of the Unilateral Declaration of Independence of 2017. Their fellow Catalans on the other side of the border are equally as rebellious, with their region, along with the rest of southern France, demonstrating their own break from orthodoxy in the regions of the Cathar rebellion. Proud of their Catalan heritage, as they will be happy to tell you on the streets of Perpignan with over 100,000 Catalan-speakers living in Rosselló, it is the Catalan name and flag that the other rugby code’s Perpignan-based Catalan Dragons represent.    

A rebellious spirit that remains proud of their history, language and cultural heritage. In many ways, Catalonia and the Basque Country were ripe for rugby. 

A week after the Iberians took to the field, club rugby is back on the table in Madrid, where Spain’s oldest club Santboiana (a century old this year) are being hosted by Cisneros Complutense, in Division de Honour at El Central, also the home ground of the Spanish national side. “We are strictly amateur; all the boys and girls you see today pay their membership,” explains Tobías Cagigal de Gregorio, the home side’s general manager. “Being born out of a college in the university, we know that people come here to study. So, you can come play rugby in the best environment.”

Professionalism exists in Spain, but with only basic renumeration. “Maybe some players earn €12,000, €15,000 I guess, but this [rugby] is not for earning money, this is only for surviving,” says Tobias. 

Here however there’s no payment, with all players being required to chip in their subs and it’s strictly amateur, where the gates number a ‘few hundred’, including the enthusiastic ´fanaticos´ who take their place behind the sticks, drums in hand. “Professionalism here, right now, is not possible. I’d like to live off rugby but who pays for the party?” he says.  “The values of rugby are sportsmanship but one of the only sports where they are kept alive is in rugby: amateur rugby.

“Because maybe in professionalism it is about money and winning but not about playing, enjoying, creating this community and creating good people. This is how we understand rugby, we live by rugby values.”

Tobías points to today as a clear example, with the refusal of Cisneros to allow the kick-off time to be changed (at the opponents’ request) as the women’s section had booked the timeslot for a girls’ match. “We believe that a club is a family. We want to see the children playing in the morning and finally the top team plays and the whole club is watching. Living rugby, a living club.

“No one is above those values, you can leave if want. We try to win everything but never lose anything. This is the way rugby has to be.” 

After the girls have finished playing, all teams come together to enjoy the last of the Sunday sunshine, the beer cooler being somewhat of a staple of Spanish rugby with the official bar long since closed. The third half doesn´t end there, with men and women´s, home and away, heading to dinner and taking over the terrace at the imaginatively named Beer & Grill long into the evening. It´s easy to see why so many at Complutense and in wider Spanish rugby are loathe to let this amateur ethos go, for they do it so well. 

An hour north of the bright lights of Madrid’s main streets of Gran Via is Alcobendas, a once-traditional working-class neighbourhood of the city but with an attitude that differs somewhat from Complutense.

Alcobendas are the modern-day challengers to the Valladolid monopoly in Spanish rugby with three King’s Cup wins in a row, together with a league run that’s seen them lose to either VRAC or El Salvador in the semi-finals for three years on the spin before reaching the final in 2021, only to agonisingly lose to VRAC, 15-19.

But when we visit, there are no league games, instead it’s the Alcobendas Rugby Legends, which sees legends teams (Ireland, Ulster, Alcobendas and a Spanish ´Barbarians´) raise more than €200,000 for charity.

It’s a Spanish rugby idyll that awaits us, with fans soaking up the sun on the grass verge above the ground, many preferring the opportunity to have their picnics rather than make use of Alconbendas’ modern stand. The smell of the barbecue – grills full of cerdo (pork), carne de vaca (beef) and salchichas (sausages) – perfumes the air around every game. José María Castillo, Alcobendas’ director of sport, takes time between games to share his and his club’s story. “I used to play football but started playing rugby at university,” he says, “that was 28 years ago, and I´m still here.” 

The university pathway is typical in Spain but one José is hoping becomes the exception rather than the norm. “I think what we are seeing now is that generation of players who played at university handing it down to their children,” he says. “Crucially, we´re also getting into schools and we are building the concept of a club.” 

That commitment to developing those grassroots partnerships is at the forefront of Alcobendas and, with 500 juniors, it is clearly paying dividends. “The first team is so important for sponsors and TV,” José acknowledges, “but we´ve made a conscious decision to invest 30 per cent of our budget in the grassroots. It´s a difficult decision but, well, we feel it´s a necessary investment.”

One of the people at Alcobendas who understands the need for junior expansion the most is 48-year-old José Ignacio Inchausti Bravo or, as everyone calls him ‘Tiki’. The fact he started at school makes him unique compared to many others of his generation who picked up the game at university. 

He is one of the few Spanish rugby players to have played at a Rugby World Cup. That sole 1999 appearance was the stuff of dreams, but not on the scoreboard: they played Uruguay, South Africa and Scotland, losing 15-27, 47-3 and 48-0 respectively. 

On the coaching front, Tiki led Spain’s sevens team at the 2016 Olympics (finishing tenth after ending up in an initial group of South Africa, France and Australia); and now finds himself as coach of Alcobendas. “We’ve seen a big increase in the youth players but crucially in the knowledge we have of the game, from a coaching perspective,” he says. “I’m a believer in Spanish rugby and I think we have shown in sevens we can match the ‘bigger’ nations.”

Potential is being realised in the abridged game. They regained their place on the World Rugby Seven´s circuit in 2017, beating Germany in the play-off final, and then finished above tier one nations France and Scotland to comfortably establish themselves in eleventh place of the fifteen core nations. 

It’s not just at the bottom of the table they’ve made their mark, Spain also beat New Zealand 26-24 and look set to remain a fixture on the sevens circuit. Perhaps more crucially, from a commercial perspective, is the fact that Spain will be hosting two World Rugby Sevens events, with Malaga and Seville providing the perfect winter destinations on the 21st and 28th January 2022. “What we need is for everything that surrounds the players, the environment and support, to be there,” says Tiki. “We have the players, what we need is the infrastructure.” 

The Rugby World Cup in 1999 was pivotal for all of rugby, the first since the dawn of professionalism, and it helped colour Tiki’s views on why Italy, a country with a similar size economy and market, has progressed while Spain stalled.  “They were in the right place at the right time,” says Tiki. “What we have to do right now is make sure rugby gets into the homes. It´s the best sport in the world, in values, in sport, it is the best. But we need to be at the Rugby World Cup.”

While Spain have failed to qualify for a Rugby World Cup since 1999, Italy have been ever-present, helped by their ongoing presence in the Six Nations, which started a year after the 1999 showpiece event.

Spanish rugby, it seems, is caught in two minds, clinging to the amateur era, but also longing for a place at the next tier of international rugby. “We used to say that we are a tier two-and-a-half country because we´re not at the first level but we are struggling to get established,” says José-Alberto Molina, editor of Spanish rugby magazine, H, who we met at Complutense. 

Professionalism hasn’t been kind to Spain, he says. “Not at all,” he emphasises. “On this very pitch (El Central) in the late 90s, we fight Italy. They were in FIRA and I have seen Spain beat Italy here. Not all the time, but enough times.

“When professionalism came to rugby, our entrepreneurial class didn´t invest money and the clubs were very proud of the ethos of rugby, so they didn´t push the structure of the clubs to professionalise. Since then, we have stagnated.” 

Things almost changed in 2018. Spain defeated Romania 22-10 in a Rugby World Cup qualifier, in front of 15,000 in El Central. Euphoria erupted as only lowly Belgium stood between Spain and their first World Cup since Tiki graced the field in 1999. 

Of course, this is Spanish rugby, where hope is always met with disappointment. For those that follow the exploits of tier two rugby closely, you’ll know what happened next. A highly suspicious selection of Romanian match officials saw Spain lose to Belgium 18-10, ensuring Romania qualified instead. 

In the end, international rugby made a fool of itself once again, with the scandal leading World Rugby to investigate both Spain and Romania for the use of ineligible players, throwing the book at both, to see Russia qualify to the Rugby World Cup in Japan. Had things been different, it would have been Spain opening the Rugby World Cup against Japan to a worldwide audience of millions but the damage was done. Spanish Rugby was back to square one. 

Sergio Gericó Noguero, the director general and CEO of Federación Española de Rugby is charged with making Spanish rugby realise its potential. 

When we speak to him in the Federation’s office, a five-minute walk from Plaza Espana in Madrid, the plaza is currently undergoing reconstruction, as Sergio himself tries to build a brighter future for Spanish rugby. Before the autumn internationals, where Spain were set to host Italy A and Fiji before a vital Rugby World Cup qualifier vs Russia, we’re struck by the photo on the wall. King Alfonso XIII looks on as Spain play Italy in Barcelona’s Estadio de Olympico, a packed crowd watching the visiting nation´s first-ever international in 1929, Spain triumphing 9-0. 

Today, El Central is very much home, but perhaps not for long. “El Central is an iconic ground and a special ground but we are unable to update it due to its protected status, or generate revenue from it,” says Sergio. “Our intention is to advance and professionalise, we have to be aiming to qualify for Rugby World Cups and compete at them. If we want to increase revenue and our potential, this is not the stadium for the future.”

It´s not just the marketing growth that Sergio is focussed on, but also increasing the Spanish player pool, in a nation dominated by football. “Firstly, the infrastructure is being put in place to detect and develop players. 

“We have eight centres of rugby in the whole territory of Spain to grow the technical and tactical skills. In five or six years, these players (male and female) will be ready to compete at the national level. 

“Here in Spain, women’s rugby (over 1,000 registered players, an Olympics 2016 appearance and ranked tenth in fifteens at the time of writing) is very important but we need more opportunities to play the better teams because the teams below us in the Six Nations ‘B’ are simply not good enough to increase our level.”

The stats bear this out with Spain consistently winning the women’s second-tier competition, taking the last five titles, including in 2021 where they took apart Holland 87-0 and Russia 56-7. Spain play Holland and Russia for Rugby World Cup preparation while the Six Nations teams get to play each other: the playing field is far from level. “This is not preparation,” says Sergio. “Commercially in potential, we should be at the same level as Italy, but with Georgia though, there is a fundamental difference. 

“They have a multi-millionaire behind them, we don´t,” he continues. “In 2021, Georgia is creating 100 academies and 100 pitches; probably if Amancio Ortega (owner of Zara and a Spanish billionaire) liked rugby we´d have 100 pitches too,” Sergio adds ruefully.

The elephant in the room, looming over all conversations in Spain, is the Six Nations. Should there be relegation to the second tier? “I don’t know,” says Sergio. “It would be good for the Six Nations and growth of the game, in exposure and commercially.” 

It is important to stress here that when Sergio states promotion and relegation would be good for the Six Nations as a whole, he means the competition, not necessarily the nations in it now. “I don’t know whether some people in the UK would like this but the problem would be for smaller nations who would find themselves competing with countries with significantly higher populations. Some have a small population. 

“Were Spain or Russia to have the opportunity to reach the Six Nations we would suddenly have far greater potential for investment and current Six Nations teams would be at risk of dropping down.” 

Sergio pointed us to this reality at a lower level, with Scotland being relegated out of the World Rugby U20 Championship in 2019 by Fiji. Spain coincidently were the Rugby Europe U20 Championship winners in 2021 (beating Portugal 15-9) which means they qualify for the second tier tournament Scotland were relegated into – the World Rugby U20 Trophy – so next year we should be able to see what gap there really is between Scotland and Spain at a junior level.

For those who make the argument of the commercial viability and ask why haven´t Russia or Spain already seen investment, there´s a simple answer. Would you invest in a product where you’re barred from getting to a level (in this case games against England or France on TV) which would allow you to see a return on your investment? It is clearly the potential to reach the top level that leads to the investment, not the other way around. 

So is it fear of not generating enough commercial income for a nation Spain might replace or fear that countries like Spain, should the door be opened, would use their higher population base and greater commercial potential to push nations like Scotland aside? “In honesty, right now I think it is both,” says Sergio.

One area where the door isn’t closed is sevens. “Fundamentally the focus is on qualification to the Rugby World Cup and we know for World Rugby that is the focus,” Sergio says. “But in the world of sport, the Olympics is huge and sevens is an Olympic sport. 

“The majority of our funding comes from the Government and, as a consequence, they want to see that investment in the Olympics.

“Rugby is the fifth largest sport in Spain by registered players,” he continues. “Within the next five years, we want to be the third sport, commercially and in player registrations. In sevens, we want to maintain our place in the World Series and in fifteens, we want to be at  Rugby World Cups. Women and men, always.”

A few days after our conversation with Sergio we’re back at Moncloa station in the west of the city, a fifteen-minute walk from El Central where our bus trip to Valladolid started this journey a month ago. This time our trip to El Central is to witness Spain take on Italy A, in preparation for the vital Rugby World Cup qualifier against Russia that could dramatically transform the fortunes of the sport. 

At El Central, fans take in the game from either the open stands or the terrace bar that looms over the stadium. They witness a narrow 11-13 loss to Italy A before children swarm on to the pitch for autographs and selfies with their heroes. 

Two weeks later on the same ground, Spain face Russia in that all-important Rugby World Cup qualifier. After previous defeats to Romania and Portugal left Spain in fifth place with only the top two guaranteed a ticket to France and the third a play-off, only a win will keep their Rugby World Cup hopes alive. Anything else and Spanish Rugby will be condemned to another four years in the wilderness.

They defeat the Russians 49-12 in front of 5,000, a result Spanish Rugby desperately needs to build momentum into 2022. It should be big news, it is big news, at least to those that follow Spanish rugby. 

However on the same day, Spain’s footballers also win 1-0 against Sweden. In front of a capacity crowd of 57,000 in Estadio de La Cartuja in Seville, the football team have booked a place at their own World Cup and so the front and back pages belong to them once again.

Spanish rugby is still waiting for its day in the sun but with a second Rugby World Cup now within touching distance, hopefully they won’t have to wait much longer. And at least, on the sun-drenched terraces of El Central, they’ve got the most pleasant of places in which to wait.   

Story by Edward Anderson

Pictures by Nacho Hernandez

This extract was taken from issue 16 of Rugby.
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