Special feature
Part II – The Clubs
After talking to Francisco Goes and gaining a better insight into how the Portuguese Rugby Union looks at women’s rugby, we tried to understand how things work at the club level. In order to do so, we chose the club that dominated the 2021/2022 season – Sporting Clube de Portugal and the Director of Rugby at the club.
Part II – João Telhada, Director of Rugby at Sporting CP.
How did you enter the world of rugby? How did it all start?
I started playing rubgy in 1987, at Técnico, where I studied. Once I finished my degree, I moved to Germany for work and had to make a hiatus in my career. When I came back, I played for SL Benfica and for the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon (in the University championships), where I studied and currently lecture.
My arrival to Sporting CP happened due to the friendship that I have with the man who started women’s rugby at the club: Rafael Lucas Pereira. Besides being a great friend, I trust him deeply and he always manages to put a lot of strategic thinking into his projects and ideas.
When I first started (2012), I was responsible for the club’s academy (men’s and women’s). During that period, Rafael created the women’s section at the club. When he left, another friend and former teammate (João Tiago Silva) took over his responsibilities.
A little over a year ago, João had to resigned due to his day job and I took over in a very natural way. This was my first season and since the beginning I’ve been trying to follow on their footsteps and stick to their goals of promoting women’s sport and try to fight inequality which, unfortunately, it’s still very much a reality.
How is your typical working day?
As I previously mentioned, I am an University Professor and my daily life revolves around teaching and research as well as working with companies in my area of expertise. When I’m not working (mostly in the evenings), I give all my spare time to rugby. It is a great pleasure for me since I’m “addicted” to rugby and one of my passions is to promote sports in general.
How many players does Sporting CP have?
We are very close to 120 players, at the moment.
How do you attract more players to the sport?
That’s the million-dollar question. Attracting players to the sport is a huge challenge, especially when we talk about young players. There are still a lot of myths and misconceptions like rugby is a dangerous and aggressive sport. People mix very easily contact and combativeness with aggression and danger. And on top of that, there’s still the usual taboo that this is not a sport for girls. We have been trying to fight this with several initiatives with several schools. Sporting CP’s management have been playing a crucial role in all of this through their seminar series about sports and its importance for children’s development and life. A good example was a lecture called “Sporting CP’s athlete – from the academy to high competition” that took place a month ago and was targeted to parents.
What’s your yearly budget?
It is obvious to me that our budget is not high enough but we understand our place in a club that has almost 5,000 athletes. I can tell you that if I had a budget around €100,000, that I could improve the quality of our programmes and help sports in general. We are constantly looking for new partners that may want to work with us and that understand our values of respect, solidarity and character building which are, in my opinion, the values of rugby.
What are, in your opinion, the biggest challenges that women’s rugby faces at this moment in time?
I think that the main challenge is how to attract more players to the sport. In Portugal, there are still very few players and only few clubs have a women’s team. This makes everything more difficult, from the logistics side of things to the competitive uncertainty which taints women’s rugby. I actually see women’s rugby as a low investment/high return sport where you can get amazing results with a very low investment. This makes me believe that we could achieve much bigger things, including at an international level, if women’s rugby had more support.
What would you change, regarding infrastructure and club conditions?
One of our main limitations is that we don’t have our own pitch which means that we are always depending on other people to have a place to practice which is far from ideal. Sometimes, we are only allowed a portion of the pitch which makes things even worse. Because of that, it’s very difficult to intensify our training regimen in crucial moments of the season and it means that we never really play at “home”. The rugby section, together with Sporting CP’s management have been working together to find solutions for this problem. We believe that if we solve this problem, that we will boost the sport considerably, both for our academy and for our senior teams, both male and female.
How does the Portuguese Rugby Union (PRU) work with Sporting CP? Do you have any development programmes for players?
Unfortunately, in my opinion, the PRU’s focus is solely on the senior teams without focussing on the academies. I understand that it’s not an easy decision since all the financial revenue comes from the senior teams. However, without a good work at the academy level it’s very hard to achieve good results in the long run. It also undermines the “public duty” that a Union must have.
In parallel, it’s important to underline the efforts that the PRU has with regards to the technical and administrative sections of their services. They make a good effort in promoting bootcamps and development academies so that, together with the clubs, players have conditions to grow. Sporting CP, as one of the main clubs in women’s rugby, represents a constant source of athletes for those programmes.
At a club level, we are investing in a Centre for Optimisation and Development that will live next to the football stadium and where the women’s team, as well as all the other rugby athletes, can go and do strength and conditioning with several sports specialists. All that investment, on both the physical and technical side of things is very important for us so we can help players develop further.
How do you see Sporting CP’s athlete’s role in the National Team?
It always makes us very proud when we see our athletes playing for Portugal but above that, it’s a sense of mission accomplished. Following what I previously mentioned, it’s a consequence of our efforts in developing players from the ground up. However, it would be great if there was a better coordination between the PRU’s calendar and our own so that we can both make the best use possible of the players we have.
