It was in August of this year with much fanfare that World Rugby announced “that its flagship 15s and sevens Rugby World Cup properties will no longer include gender in their titles.” This the world was told was because World Rugby was “furthering its commitment to equality and brand consistency across its portfolio.”
To many it was a bold gesture, to others it smacked of tokenism, and band wagon-hopping, while as pointed out it potentially created a marketing nightmare. (De-sexing Sport)
Following the World Cup Final in Japan World Rugby announced the winners in their Annual World Rugby Awards on Sunday. There were 12 categories in the awards, including best try, best coach, best referee, etcetera. Of those twelve awards it may come as no surprise to many that only two went to women. Both of those in categories restricted to women, namely the World Rugby Women’s 15s Player of the Year and the World Rugby Women’s Sevens Player of the Year.
There are understandably many who are confused by these awards and the statement released in August.
If World Rugby is genuine about “furthering its commitment to equality and brand consistency across its portfolio,” just as it has done with its “Flagship” events, surely then it would no longer include gender in its flagship awards?
Surely if the World body were genuine about equality there would no longer be a World Rugby Mens and Womens’ 15’s Player of The Year or Sevens Player of the year, there would simply be a “Player of the Year.”
Nominations for the accolade of World Rugby’s Player of the year would then come from both sexes and be decided upon based upon a criteria that is already no doubt in place to decide the winners in each gender category at the current time.
Some have said that the powers that be at World Rugby did not think this through, hence the two awards. Others claim they did think it through and worried that if it was just one Player of the year award for each format of the game, it may be dominated by men, and then if a woman won it would then be regarded as tokenism.
The truth is they made a rod for their own backs by making the announcement that they did in August. The equality many women want is the same promotion, the same media coverage and the opportunity to earn and play as often as the men. The equality that most are striving for is in the main equal opportunity.
There should be two awards. Men and women should be able to celebrate the best in their game. A woman as much as a man should be proud to have been voted the best player in the world in their game and congratulations to both South Africa’s Pieter-Steph du Toit and England’s Emily Scarratt for taking out the 15’s award and New Zealand’s Ruby Tui and Fiji’s Jerry Tuwai in the Sevens category.
The dropping of the “Women’s” and “Men’s” from the World Cups we were told by World Rugby Chairman Sir Bill Beaumont was to remove “unintentional gender bias.” Having seperate awards then would presumably be a case of intentional gender bias?
World Rugby tried to push a message that they thought would win people over. However these types of decisions to carry any credibility have to be carried through across the board. If what they shouted from the rooftops in August is true, then they have no choice in a commitment to equality and Brand consistency than to make the 2020 awards open to either sex. A failure to do so will prove all of those who claimed the world cup move was nothing more than tokenism to be right.
