Professional rugby clubs across Europe were this weekend to pay tribute to Nicolas Chauvin, the young Stade Francais player who died after breaking his neck in a youth match on Sunday last week.
European Professional Club Rugby on Friday said in a statement that a minute’s silence would be observed for the 18-year-old before the kickoffs of this weekend’s Champions Cup, Challenge Cup and Continental Shield fixtures.
Stade Francais on Friday honored Chauvin by offering free entry for their Challenge Cup meeting with Ospreys in Paris. Ospreys won 51-20.
Chauvin was the third young French player to die this year after being injured during a match, prompting French Minister of Sports Roxana Maracineanu to call on rugby authorities to make the game safer.
Maracineanu said that she would meet French Rugby Federation president Bernard Laporte to discuss ways of preventing more deaths.
“A third young player has died on a rugby field, the first since I became sports minister, and that is too much,” Maracineanu told reporters.
Chauvin died in a hospital after suffering a broken neck, which triggered a heart attack during a match in Bordeaux on Sunday.
In August, 21-year-old Louis Fajfrowski died following a heavy tackle playing for Aurillac. Three months earlier, a 17-year-old died a day after receiving a blow to the head playing for amateur club Billom.
“It is time the sport adapts its rules to protect younger players from the risks,” Maracineanu said.
The federation has responded by asking World Rugby to hold a special meeting dedicated to safety as soon as possible.
Rugby is a contact sport involving major impacts between players colliding at speed, meaning injuries can occur even when no foul play takes place.
Without drawing a direct link to the dangers of the sport, Laporte said that young people were quitting rugby in significant numbers.
“We have lost 5 percent of our registered players in the past year. We must put a stop to this collapse,” he said.
The fall in participation was 10 percent for men, with a rise in female participation raising the overall figure to 5 percent, he added.
The federation would invest 10 million euros (US$11.3 million) to improve rugby coaching in schools while counting on the staging of the 2023 Rugby World Cup in France to revive interest among young people, the former national coach said.
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