Wheelchair Rugby Rules

According to the International Wheelchair Rugby Federation, "murderball" was wheelchair rugby's original appellation when Canadian quadriplegics invented a game in 1977 that did not rely on hands and arms as much as wheelchair basketball does. In 1979, the first Canadian National Championships were played, the same year the game made its first U.S. appearance. In 1981, the United States had its own team, and by 1989 so did Great Britain. In 1993, with 15 participatory countries, the IWRF was founded as an official sport.

International Rules and Regulations

The game's growing popularity encouraged rules standardization. These rules governed game-time competition, player eligibility, wheelchair design and court layout. IWRF's Rules & Regulations page, which provides a link to its voluminous official rule book, states that players are classified by physical ability, with .5 being low and 3.5 being high. Each side has four players, whose cumulative ability point value cannot exceed 8.0. Wheelchairs must be manual, not mechanized. The ball is a volleyball and the court a 28-by-15-meter basketball court with boundary lines, center lines, a center circle and key areas on each end line, providing the goal area.

Muderball, The Game

The game is composed of four eight-minute quarters with breaks in between that typically stretch game time to slightly over one hour. Two players enter the center circle for the tipoff, when the referee tosses the ball. The team that gains possession has 40 seconds from the time its second player contacts the ball to score a goal. This time restriction encourages a rapid tempo with fast passing. When a player crosses the portion of the end line in the key area, in full control of the ball, his team scores. Any two of the wheelchair's four wheels must have crossed the end line for the goal to count.

Contact with and Playing the Ball

Permissible ball contact involves the arm, hand, lap or chair. The ball cannot be kicked but can be thrown, bounced, rolled or swatted. If the ball rests in a player's lap, at least three-quarters of it must remain visible. A "held" ball occurs when two players simultaneously gain control of it, either by both holding the ball or by one player placing a hand atop the ball, preventing the other player from advancing it. The referee awards possession of a held ball according to a system of alternating possessions. Only the team with possession can be assessed violations.

Additional Regulations

Eligible quadriplegics have spinal cord injury-induced paralysis, usually from the shoulders down, with loss of function and sensation below the injury. Players have only 10 seconds to bounce or pass the ball to a teammate, and a team has 15 seconds to move the ball across the center line. Teams' offensive players have a 10-second limit for remaining inside the opposing team's key area, and defensive players cannot total more than three in their own key. If the game is tied after the fourth quarter, an overtime period of three minutes is played. The IWRF stipulates that additional three-minute overtimes are to be played if necessary to determine a winner.