VALPARAISO: At first, the tackles, rucks and mauls were merely survival tactics within the harsh world of prison. But what began as a workshop behind barbed wire has transcended the walls of the Valparaíso Penitentiary Complex to become Chile’s first official rugby team formed behind bars.
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The routine is intense. Three days of field training, two days in the gym, and matches every weekend. It mirrors the schedule of a professional league, but this is Rugby Unión Libertad — a sports club officially registered in mid-January with a mission that goes far beyond the pitch: preparing inmates for social reintegration after they serve their sentences.
“Rugby freed me; it healed my soul,” Alex Javier Silva, 48, who has been incarcerated since 1999, told The Associated Press. “Here you have no heart, no mind — you’re not at peace with anything. You’re like an animal.”
Rugby Unión Libertad began to take shape in 2016 as part of a workshop inside the prison walls. Led by the Addiction Treatment Center, the classes initially sparked the interest of around 50 inmates, who began to play with the “pill” — rugby’s oval ball — as a way to ease the weight of their time inside.
