Ignore ‘health and safety fanatics’ and get more children playing rugby, says Johnson

MORE children should be encouraged to play rugby, Boris Johnson has said as he took aim at “Covid-maddened health and safety fanatics” who have likened the sport to child abuse.

The former prime minister ridiculed a study by academics that claims neither children nor their parents could give informed legal consent to play the game in schools. Academics from the universities of Winchester, Nottingham Trent and Bournemouth also argued the risk of serious injury was contrary to child abuse laws. The Rugby Football Union (RFU) has insisted its sport provided “significant” physical and mental health benefits and noted young people play it in many forms, including reduced contact and non-contact.

Writing in his weekly Daily Mail column, Mr Johnson said: “It’s time for every rugby-loving person in this country to come together in lock-tight defence of one of the greatest sports ever invented. If we keep going like this, the vast army of finger-wagging, cigar-snatching, mask-wearing, Covid-maddened health and safety fanatics is going to keep pushing us back, our boots skidding in the mud, until they have driven the oval ball right off the national pitch.” Mr Johnson dismissed the contents of the study as “twaddle” and said rugby only presented mild physical risks in much the same way as a number other sports including cycling, horse riding and diving.

Insisting there was no way to “pasteurise” its risks, he added: “We should be massively expanding rugby for young people, because far from risking their lives it can save them. Not just from obesity and ill-health but from the daily tragedy of violence on our streets. Now is the time not just to halt the decline of rugby but to drive the rugby-bashers back in a flailing tangle of confusion and believe me, my friends, if we don’t do it now, they will come for us in the end.”

During his time as the mayor of London from 2008-16, Mr Johnson said he worked to support programmes such as HITZ, an education and employment scheme run by Premiership Rugby for young people struggling with education, family life or substance abuse. Recalling his own experiences of the game, Mr Johnson said he “loved” playing rugby as a child and the fear felt by participants ahead of a scrum was a major part of the appeal of the game.

Concussion and related lawsuits involving former rugby players have become a major issue for the game in recent years, with almost 300 people now taking legal action against the RFU, World Rugby and the Welsh Rugby Union. Three members of the England squad that won the 2003 Rugby World Cup are suffering neurological issues. Among these is Steve Thompson, who has early-onset dementia and is unable to remember taking part in the final.

Brian Moore, a Telegraph columnist, warned last year that it was too early to “take sides” in the debate and warned its tone risked doing “immense harm” to the rugby community.

‘We should be massively expanding rugby for young people ... far from risking their lives it can save them’