WITH rugby, like the rest of other sports, shutdown due to the COVID-19, World Rugby announced yesterday that it has created a relief fund of approximately US$100M, to assist unions around the world as they grapple with the financial impact of the pandemic.

With fixtures either postponed or cancelled, the body said the fund would be available to rugby unions that are in need of “immediate emergency funding” as long as certain criteria are met.

The global governing body is also exploring options for rearranging the international rugby calendar in the short term in preparation for sport restarting.

World Rugby’s contingencies include the possibilities that cross-hemisphere travel may not be permitted, which would impact on the northern hemisphere’s autumn series, and that no international rugby at all may be feasible until 2021.

Rugby Americas North (RAN), the body to which Guyana Rugby Football Union (GRFU) is affiliated too, recently made-known that its 2020 RAN Men’s 15-a-side competition, along with the Women’s 10s and Men’s Under-19 tournament, which was set to take place July 8-12 in Nassau, Bahamas, have been cancelled.

The Senior Men’s 15-a-side tournament was to get underway in April and doubled as the first regional qualification round for Rugby World Cup 2023. These matches have now been tentatively postponed to 2021, with further details to be confirmed.

Currently, the 2020 RAN Sevens competition is still scheduled to take place in November 2020 and will be assessed over the course of the coming months as further developments take place. A venue has not yet been finalised.

When contacted recently-elected president of GRFU, Ryan Dey, told Chronicle Sport that the local rugby body will have to go through their affiliate (RAN) to access any funding from World Rugby, while noting that a proposal was already sent.

Last week, Rugby Americas announced the cancellation of the upcoming 2020 Under-20 Americas Rugby Championship (ARC) in Montevideo, Uruguay, which included Canada and the USA.

Further decisions regarding the senior and U-20 editions of the Americas Rugby Challenge will be announced in due course as the ongoing environment is continuously being evaluated.