ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) rugby teams will face each other in the first match of the Asia Rugby Championship Division 1 tournament today, Tuesday, at Lahore’s Punjab Football Stadium, the UAE Rugby Federation confirmed.
Pakistan and the UAE regularly have cultural, educational, and business exchanges as well as sports events, which provide a platform for people of both countries to know more about each other and strengthen bilateral ties.
The game, which is part of a two-match series, will kick off at 8:30 p.m. Pakistan Standard Time. The second match will be played on July 8, and both matches will be telecast live on Pakistan’s state-owned PTV Sports.
“Thrilling rugby match day [featuring] Pakistan vs UAE’s [in the] Asia Rugby Men’s Division 1 Championship,” UAE Rugby Federation announced in a Twitter post on Tuesday.
UAE arrived in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore on Monday afternoon.
Rugby is a close-contact team sport in which players have to run with the ball in their hands. In its most common form, a game is played between two teams of 15 players each, using an oval-shaped ball on a rectangular field called a pitch. The field has H-shaped goalposts at both ends.
Pakistan’s national rugby team made its international debut in a match against Sri Lanka in 2003, while the UAE, which had been part of the Arabian Gulf Rugby Football Union since 1974, became a full member of Asia Rugby in 2012.
