International referee

Linha de Ensaio had the pleasure of talking with Paulo Duarte

How did you enter the world of Rugby?

I started as a player. I was 15 years old and wanted to play a sport. At the time, one of my classmates played for Belas Rugby Clube and I asked him if I could go and try. I never thought about football as I have two “left feet”. At Belas, I really enjoyed the club mentality and training and, despite not knowing very well what rugby was, I ended up staying.

Was it easy to know more about rugby about then?

At the time (2005), there weren’t a lot of news about rugby, only some here and there. It wasn’t like now, with all information that one can get from social media.  

In which position did you play?

I started as a winger because I was fast and skinny but the coach quickly realised that I couldn’t kick the ball and that I didn’t have the tactical knowledge to play in that position so he moved me to the second row. I was light which was very helpful for the line-outs. I also played openside flanker and inside centre.

How did things evolve from there?

In 2006/2007, Belas had a former referee (Ferdinand de Sousa) working in the club and he had been one of the founders of the School for Young Referees and he asked me if I wanted to enrol. I had already asked him a lot of questions about the laws of rugby and he thought I was a good fit. Until 2009, I played and refereed at the same time. In 2009, I got two serious injuries (torn ACL) and I had to re-think what I wanted to do with my life and I chose to only referee.

How did you see the evolution of rugby since you started playing?

The fact that rugby became a professional sport was very good for us. In Portugal, that was particularly noticeable in terms of sponsorships and of the goals that were set internally: go to the World Cup 2007. That happened because we had a squad full of talented players, with some of our 7s players (that, at the time, had one 5 European championships back-to-back) moving to the XV squad. The fact that we went to that World Cup made rugby known to the public and that really helped the sport.

How did you live that World Cup?

I was lucky to be able to watch it live. We went on tour with Belas and managed to watch three matches live (Portugal v Scotland, Portugal v New Zealand and Romania v Argentina). On our way to France we played two matches, one against a Spanish team and another one against a French one and to me, as an 18 year-old kid, it was an unreal experience. Listening to our national anthem being played in Lyon followed by the haka, still gives me goosebumps. I actually have a funny story about it…

At Belas, I was in charge of recording the matches for game analysis – I was given the nickname Fellini because of it. During that match, I was supposed to record the anthem and the haka and so I did. Once it was over, I lowered the camera and watched the match. When we went to check the recording, the only thing we could see were my feet as I had only started recording when I turned the camera down.

Any other stories that you can share?

We ended up appearing in the Rugby World magazine with a sign that said “Carter, kick my balls” and, during the match, every time he was near us, we showed the sign. After the match was finished, Portugal and New Zealand played a game of football – I don’t think that anyone that didn’t stay after the match knows about this. We won 2-1, the stadium was almost empty and we managed to show him the sign, with him laughing a lot. Shame we didn’t have smart phones at the time to take photos of it.

How do you see rugby in Portugal nowadays?

Since the World Cup in 2007, we doubled the number of players and the clubs restructured themselves. In the last few years, things have been more stable but still growing which is excellent. Our main problem has to do with facilities. We don’t have the space or the culture to have a rugby sports complex with several pitches. Even schools, that then feed the clubs academies like in England, we don’t have any of that.

I think that, if we had better conditions, we would have more players involved in the sport but, since we don’t have that, we don’t have a way out for the players that we would be creating. And there’s also the money side of things. It’s very hard to get sponsorships and the majority of the ones that the clubs get are from the parents of the athletes involved which means that it’s very likely that the sponsorship will disappear once the player leaves the club.

In Portugal, football is king and it’s very hard for rugby to have a market. We are yet to define what product we have and how we can sell it, in order to grow the sport.

Do you think that the Rugby Europe Super Cup will help? One of the goals was to help players to become professional or semi-professional.

The problem with that competition is the lack of money. If we compare it with SLAR (South America) or the MLR (North America), where huge sponsorships are involved and there is the certainty that the competition will carry on, one can assure the players that they have a future there. The Rugby Europe Super Cup, and it’s important to credit Rugby Europe for creating it, doesn’t have that kind of money.

The Portuguese team (Lusitanos XV) is working as a platform to showcase some players that would have the chance to compete internationally, otherwise. Some teams in the competition already had big sponsorships (especially the ones in the Eastern Conference) but we started with very little money. I’m looking forward to seeing the semi-finals, where our team will play against bigger and more physical players.   

Going back to refereeing, how did you get to the 2020 Olympic Games?

It all started in 2010, with a lot of hard work and in 2012 I got my first nomination, at the time in the 2^nd division of 7s. I went to Poland and, in a tournament full of emotions, I refereed the final and, because of that, was invited to the second stage of the Grand Prix (in Denmark). From there, it was always up and I entered the World Circuit of 7s. All of this took a lot of hard work, with a lot of training and personal sacrifices. Unfortunately, we are not a wealthy rugby union and I had to pay myself to go to London and Dubai to be involved in those tournaments.

Don’t you get paid to referee those matches?

It’s funny because people think that I make good money doing this but, because rugby 7s is considered an amateur sport, I don’t get any match fees. The flights and hotels are paid for but that’s it. In the Olympics it was different, which makes sense, as we are officiating the best players in the world.

What was the highest point for you in Tokyo?

Just being there. It was the ultimate goal for my refereeing career, the culmination of a lot of hard work. On top of things, I almost didn’t go, as I got injured two months before the Olympics. There, I refereed 3 men’s matches, including the 7^th place one and 4 more on the lady’s, including the quarter finals. The match was Australia-Fiji where the latter beat the Olympic gold medallists, in a very intensive match. I left the pitch feeling like I had done a great job but it was impossible not to be touched by the sadness of the Australian players, completely heartbroken.

How many times a week do you train?

At least three times a week, plus gym where I focus on doing circuits. I also run with my mates and have some specific training sessions, focused on velocity and speed of reaction. The training programme depends if I’m refereeing 7s or XV. Right now, I’m also working with a sports psychologist, working on how to handle errors and pressure. And all of this, on top of my normal job. Fortunately, I am now working for the Portuguese Rugby Union, which gives me a bit more time for travelling, training and refereeing matches.

Do you have any advice for people who want to become a rugby referee?

The person really needs to love the sport. Being a referee is an excellent alternative to those who cannot play. To become a rugby coach, it takes time but to become a referee, it’s a more quick process. On top of that, we have an active role during the match – it’s not a coincidence that people say that referees have the best seat in the house to watch the match. When things go well, we are given a couple of free beers at the end of the match, and we also get to travel to different places and meet people that, otherwise, we wouldn’t be able to.

You’ve mentioned football and how it takes a lot of the spotlight away from rugby. Is it possible to compare both sports in terms of refereeing?

They’re completely different styles. Football is a much more reactive sport whilst, in rugby, we can “predict” what’s going to happen. We even have the power to avoid infractions by telling the players to stop running or taking their hands away, which helps the pace of the game. Also, in rugby, the laws are very severe to those who break them, which is very useful to avoid having 30 people fighting on the pitch.

TMO has also been used for 20 years which has helped the game a lot. Football now has VAR but it’s a recent implementation and people don’t accept and respect it much, which is a shame.

Do you think that rugby has an advantage because everyone can hear the conversations between the referee and the players?

I think so. I also think that football is not ready for that yet. However, I think that it would make sense, when there is a VAR decision to create a “bubble” where we say “OK, we are ON now” and we could listen to the dialogue between the referee and the VAR so we could understand the logic behind the decision. Besides that, the levels of respect are very different between rugby and football, with the latter having a lot of “colourful language”. If that was to be made public, it would damage the industry.

What ambitions do you have for your career?

Now in 2022, World Rugby invited me to go to the United States for 5 months to referee the Major League Rugby which will allow me to live the life of a professional referee 7 days/week. My 7s career is coming to an end – I’m not sure if I’ll be in the 2024 Olympics but if so, that would be an excellent way of finishing it – so I need to rethink my XV career and this is a great opportunity for it. In 2021, I had the chance of refereeing two Rugby Europe Championship matches (Georgia v Russia and Georgia v Romania) which was a great opportunity for me.

I still have 4 stages of the 7s World Circuit to do and, if things go well, I’m also going to the 7s World Championship in South Africa.