If you have just found out that touch rugby exists and want to know whether anyone plays it in Switzerland: yes. Fourteen clubs, a national competition and four Swiss teams at the last World Cup. Here is the map — and where we sit on it, which is slightly off the edge.
Who runs it
Touch Switzerland is the national association for the sport. It does what a federation does: affiliates the clubs, runs the national competition, looks after referees and coaching, and picks the national teams. Four Swiss teams played at the 2024 Touch World Cup in Nottingham, and Swiss sides turn up at the European Championships.
One thing worth saying plainly, because people assume otherwise: touch is its own sport, with its own world governing body, the Federation of International Touch. It is not a warm-up version of rugby union invented for people who would rather not be tackled. It came out of Australia, it has its own rule book, its own World Cup and its own set of skills.
The fourteen clubs
These are the clubs affiliated to Touch Switzerland:
Baden Banditos · Bagnes Bucks · Basel Touch · Geezers Zürich · Geneva Jets · Geneva Switzers · La Côte Touch · LUC Lakers · Luzern Honeybadgers · PWP Egg · Terre-Sainte Titans · Touch Rugby Bern · Touch Rugby Üri · Zug Touch
Read that list with a map in your head and the shape is obvious. There is a cluster around Lake Geneva, a few in the Mittelland, and a group in the Zurich–Zug–Lucerne triangle. Geneva alone has more touch clubs than the whole of eastern Switzerland.
The Swiss Cup
The national competition is the Swiss Cup, known in 2026 as the Atlas Swiss Cup. It runs across two divisions: Division 1 is the five strongest teams in the country, Division 2 takes the rest, including combined squads. Both divisions play on the same days — four days of round robin spread across the season. Round one of the 2026 edition was on 29 August.
If you want competitive touch with fixtures, standings and results, that is where it happens, and an affiliated club is how you get there.
Nobody plays east of Zurich
Now go back to the list and look for eastern Switzerland. St. Gallen, Thurgau, Appenzell, Graubünden. There is nothing. Not one affiliated club.
That absence is more or less the reason we exist. In 2009 a woman from St. Gallen came back to Switzerland after picking up the sport abroad, found nowhere to play it, and rather than wait for someone else to fix that, put out a call and got enough people together for two sides. We have been on the Kreuzbleiche on Thursday evenings ever since.
We are not on that list of fourteen and we are not trying to be. We are not a registered club, we do not charge anything and we do not play in the Swiss Cup. We are a group of people on a public field on a Thursday evening. But if you live in this corner of the country and you want to play touch, we are what there is.
So which one do you actually want?
Two honest options, depending on what you are after.
If you want the competitive version — a season, fixtures, a squad, results that count — join one of the affiliated clubs. The nearest to eastern Switzerland are around Zurich, Zug and Lucerne. Expect regular training and expect to travel.
If you want a game on a Thursday evening — mixed teams, no fee, no season ticket, no commitment beyond turning up with some regularity — come to the Kreuzbleiche. You can read how a session works first if you want to know what you are walking into.
About the rules
The rules of touch are written by the Federation of International Touch, currently in their fifth edition. You can download the full FIT Playing Rules if you want the real thing.
We do not use them. We play a simplified version, explained on the pitch in about five minutes, which keeps the game moving and keeps everyone in one piece. If you go on to play in the Swiss Cup you will need the proper rule book. For a Thursday at the Kreuzbleiche, you need shorts and the ability to catch.