Stewart Maxwell, an MSP with the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP), has claimed that the cancellation of the Rugby World Cup sevens tournament after the 2013 event will mean that Scotland will lose its main opportunity to appear on the international stage because they will be absorbed into a joint British team for the Olympics.

The International Rugby Board (IRB) promised to scrap the World Cup sevens if they were voted into the Olympics, which they were at the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) Session in Copenhagen on October 9.

The sport is due to make its Olympic debut in Rio de Janeiro in 2016. 

Rugby sevens can trace its origins to Melrose in Scotland when, in 1883, two butchers Ned Haig and David Sanderson conceived the game as a fund-raising event for the local club.

Maxwell said: "The SRU (Scottish Rugby Union) must use their place in the IRB to stop this plan that will push Scotland's sevens - the home of sevens - off the world stage.

"The IRB seem determined to scrap the Sevens World Cup - taking away Scotland's right to compete as a rugby sevens team in a major tournament.

"For this to happen to the country that invented the game is unacceptable."

Maxwell has also been at the forefront of opposition to a united British football team taking part in the London 2012 Olympics because he claims it will jeopardise the independence of Scotland to take part in events like the World Cup and the European Championships.

The IRB had been promised by the Home Unions during the campaign to get rugby sevens onto the Olympic programme that they were all behind the plan and there would be no football-style row.

Unlike in football, where the majority of top Scottish players have vowed to boycott representing Britain, Maxwell's rugby campaign seems set to fall flat.

Gavin Hastings, the former Scotland and British Lions captain, told The Scotsman: "It would be a shame if the Sevens World Cup was lost and Scotland could no longer play in it, but you have to remember there would still be a Scottish team in the Commonwealth Games.

"Overall the benefits of rugby being included in the Olympics and the profile that gives the sport is worth the loss of the sevens World Cup."

Dominic McKay, the SRU's director of communications, said: "We take pride that sevens, invented in Scotland, will now spearhead the worldwide growth of our sport as a by-product of the IOC's decision."


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