"Former Bundesliga winners" - German football club launches new rugby team

1860's football team are currently languishing in the 3. Bundesliga, but are older than city rivals Bayern Munich and for a portion of their early existence, were the biggest club in the Bavarian city.

They have recently announced in a club statement that they will become only the second football club in Germany to have a rugby team, alongside Eintracht Frankfurt.

While not entirely a different department, a statement on their website said, "The development of the sport, which originated in the British Isles, will initially take place at 1860 as a division within the football department."

Multi sports clubs are not unfamiliar in Germany, with Bayern Munich boasting seven sports that can be played under the clubs umbrella.

Bayern did once have a rugby club, running from 1922 to 1937 and even seeing them become German Champions in 1932. Unfortunately, rugby was almost entirely wiped out in World War 2 from the country and the team never returned.

A football club introducing a rugby team shows how much the sport is growing. It follows on from news that all British and Irish Lions Test games will be televised this year on free-to-air TV in the country, after the warmup game against Argentina drew such high numbers that it was considered viable to show the full series.

The plan seems to be for the new 1860 Munich rugby club to play in the local Bavarian league for now, the fifth tier of the German game. They may be forced to merge for a season with another club but the plan seems to be for them to form their own in the long-term.

A statement on the club website read, "Timo (who runs the team) is currently working on establishing two joint teams with another Munich rugby club. Both teams are expected to participate in the competition next season."

Vice President of the football department, Bernt Bramböck, explained the decision to start with two teams in the statement and issued a plan for the future.

It read, "Bernd Bramböck is confident, "that rugby will be met with great interest at 1860. We hope that through the two joint teams, we can establish the sport at the Lions and then field our own teams later."

There is already an independent club called Munich RFC in the top tier, but they lack the pre-existing fan base that 1860 has from the footballing side of things. For now, the original Munich RFC will be a few divisions ahead of 1860 but there could be a shift in hierarchies in the near future.

In the third division of German football, last season 1860 averaged 15,000 fans. That number is significantly more than even the German national team would expect to get at games in the Rugby Europe system, so introducing the sport to that amount of people will surely help with growing popularity.

If the plan proves successful, other teams in Germany may be encouraged to do the same thing and create rugby departments, something which has already proved positive for basketball in Europe and domestically in Germany.

It is a step in the right direction and a positive sign that the sport is growing in the football-centric nation.