Aia Rugby has commenced a series of important annual conferences as part of the Impact Beyond legacy programme to strengthen the capacity of Unions to grow the game in Asia up to and after RWC 2019 in Japan.
Following on from last year’s conferences in Bangkok, the UAE Rugby Federation is this year hosting the annual gatherings in Dubai.
Following a meeting of the Impact Beyond Management Committee on Wednesday 13th September, the 2 day Leading Rugby conference on 14-15 September involves leaders from 10 selected unions, brought together to exchange ideas on key issues such as governance; planning; maximizing income and communications strategies.
Leading Rugby conference
The Leading Rugby conference was opened by Asia Rugby’s Secretary General, Qais Al Dhalai who stated, “It’s a great honour for UAE Rugby to host this very important conference, which is designed by World Rugby to help unions with the challenges they face around running the game in their home countries.”
Al Dhalai further added, “Asia Rugby has decided to cover both geographical zones: the East in 2016 with Bangkok hosting the 1st Leading Rugby and Growing the Game Conferences; and now we are witnessing these great products also being offered to the West/Central Asian member unions in Dubai.”
Growing the Game conference
The annual Growing the Game conference on 16-17 September will be attended by 50 delegates from 26 unions to maintain the momentum from last year’s gathering in Bangkok and continue progress towards achieving Impact Beyond targets such as 2 million players; 23,500 Coaches;10,300 Match Officials; 2,350 Strength & Conditioning Coaches and 1,500 trained Medical personnel across Asia by 2020, with up to 50% of the new players being female alongside a growing number of females in the Game’s volunteer workforce.
Asia Rugby member unions have tasked themselves to implement 63 Impact Beyond projects over the next 2 years to improve the Game across the region.
