CAR was officially launched in January 1986, at Tunis, on the occasion of meeting between rugby officials from Tunisia, Morocco, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Tanzania, Kenya, the Seychelles and Madagascar.
The first African rugby competition was the elimination tournament held to deteremine which African teams advanced to take part in the 1991 Rugby World Cup. This event was organised by the IRB and staged in May 1990 in Harare, Zimbabwe.
In July 1992, under the initiative of Abdelaziz BOUGJA, a meeting of CAR was held in Casablanca, Morocco, with a view to integrating South Africa within CAR. This move recognised the end of apartheid, and the launch of democracy in what is the continent’s strongest rugby nation.
This meeting followed Mr Bougja’s visit in March 1992 to Kimberley, in South Africa, where he attended the formal unification of the mainly white South African Rugby Board with the mainly black South African Rugby Union to form the newly united South African Rugby Football Union (SARFU).
Just a decade later, on April 30 2002, at the CAR General Assembly held in Yaoundé in Cameroon, the President and Executive developed a programme to develop rugby throughout the continent.