Rugby union in the Arabian Peninsula

The game is played in six out of seven countries on the peninsula, specifically the Gulf Cooperation states of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

In addition, some Arabian royals and nobles had been sending their sons to English private schools, where they picked up the game.

However, the International Rugby Board's governance restructuring project for the West Asia region under the Asian Rugby Football Union dissolved the AGRFU to allow separate national federations to be formed for each member country from 2011 onwards.

[3] The unified representative team for the six Gulf states played its final Test match in May 2010, before the split.

[4] The UAE Rugby Federation was formed in 2009 and their national team inherited the former Arabian Gulf team's world ranking,[5] while separate federations in Qatar and Saudi Arabia became the new sports governing bodies for rugby in those countries.