A position paper on the future of Sri Lankan rugby development

We’re Good at Doing Trendy Things But Who Are We Doing Them For?

Sri Lanka has never really had a shortage of talented rugby players. What we have struggled with is what happens to those players after school.

And that distinction matters. We are very good at creating events. We are good at creating excitement, launching new competitions, introducing new branding, bringing in commercial partners and packaging sport in ways that look modern and professional.

But modern-looking rugby is not necessarily developed rugby.

The question we should be asking is not simply:

“Is this new initiative good?”

It is ?

“Is this the best use of our limited resources if our objective is to make Sri Lanka more competitive in international rugby?”

That is a much harder question. And it is the question Sri Lankan rugby needs to confront now.

The real problem begins after school

For generations, Sri Lankan rugby has been heavily dependent on the school system. That system has produced an extraordinary amount of talent relative to the size of the country. The school rugby competition remains one of the most important talent pools in the country. But school is also where the pathway becomes dangerously narrow. A player can spend years training, competing and developing through school rugby and then, at approximately 18 or 19 years of age, suddenly face a completely different reality.

What happens next?

For some, there is a club. For a smaller number, there is provincial or national selection. For others, university rugby may provide an option. But for many players, there is simply no sufficiently attractive, structured and sustainable next step.

This is not just a sporting problem.

It is a player welfare problem.

A talented 18-year-old has to start thinking about university, employment, family expectations and financial independence. Rugby, meanwhile, is asking them to continue investing time, physical effort and risk into a sport that may provide very little economic security. It should therefore not surprise us when players leave.

If we want to retain talent, we have to make staying in rugby a realistic life choice.

The new franchise approach: good idea, wrong question?

The recently introduced franchise-based U19 competition is an interesting development. It has several obvious strengths.

It brings talented young players together.
It creates a higher-performance environment outside the traditional school structure.
It provides exposure to coaches, strength and conditioning, medical support, selectors and a more commercially packaged competition.
It also creates visibility.

Those are all positives. But there is a fundamental question we should not avoid:

What happens to the player when the competition ends?

A four-week or short-format competition can create an excellent experience. It cannot, by itself, create a player-development pathway. The distinction is important.

A tournament answers:

Where do we play?

A pathway answers:

Where does the player go next?

Those are not the same thing.

We should stop confusing events with pathways

Imagine that we have 140 talented young rugby players. We bring them together. We train them. We expose them to good coaching. We create franchises. We play matches. We attract sponsors. We produce content. We create excitement. And then the competition ends.

What happens on Monday?

Where does the player train? Who pays for their development? Who provides strength and conditioning? Who monitors their injuries? Who helps them transition into senior rugby? Who helps them find employment? Who ensures they continue playing at 20, 21, 22 and 23?

If the answer is unclear, then we have created an elite event, not an elite pathway.

And Sri Lanka doesn’t need more evidence that it can produce talented 18-year-olds. It needs evidence that it can turn those 18-year-olds into 28-year-old international rugby players.

What if we spent the same money differently?

This is where the conversation becomes interesting.

The actual financial cost of the current franchise-based competition has not been publicly disclosed in sufficient detail to make a definitive comparison. So any financial comparison must be treated as a planning model, not as a claim about what the competition actually costs.

But suppose a programme of this scale required somewhere in the region of US$200,000–300,000 (these figures are illustrative planning estimates, not disclosed figures for the existing competition) when coaching, facilities, medical support, transport, accommodation, equipment, administration, officials and commercial production are considered.

Would Sri Lankan rugby get a greater long-term return if some of that investment went into a permanent academy structure?

I believe it is worth asking.

For example, a lean four-region academy system could potentially provide:

dedicated technical coaching
strength and conditioning
physiotherapy and medical support
nutrition
player education
welfare support
transport assistance
regular competitive fixtures
links to senior clubs
U20/U23 development
employment opportunities

The objective would not be to replace the franchise competition. It would be to build the infrastructure underneath it.

Four regional academies could change the model

Imagine four regional centres — not necessarily rigidly based on administrative provinces, but designed around existing rugby communities. Each academy could have approximately 30–40 players. The player would not simply attend a camp and disappear. Instead, they would belong to a system.

School → Regional Academy → U20/U23 → Club Rugby → National Pathway

And importantly, these stages should overlap. A player could remain attached to an academy while playing for a club. The academy could monitor their physical development. The club could provide competitive senior rugby. The national selectors could monitor the pathway. The player would therefore have somewhere to go.

That is what is currently missing.

The club system should be part of the solution

There is another obvious resource sitting in front of us: Sri Lankan club rugby already exists.

Instead of creating completely separate structures around young players, why not invest in making the club system better at developing them? A particularly interesting model would be to use Division II and other appropriate senior competitions as a development platform.

An academy player could be attached to: Regional Academy + Club + Education/Employment rather than being expected to move directly from school rugby into an elite national environment.

This would also make the transition into adult rugby more gradual. The player learns how to train like a senior athlete. They learn how to manage work and sport. They develop physically. They experience different styles of rugby. They begin building a life outside school rugby.

That is development.

What about the money?

This is where I think Sri Lankan rugby could be genuinely innovative. Instead of asking sponsors only to fund competitions, ask them to employ players. Sri Lanka already has a long relationship between rugby and the corporate sector. Why not formalise it?

A company could support a group of academy players by providing employment, training flexibility and a salary.

For example, as a purely illustrative model:

20 players × LKR 50,000 per month × 12 months = LKR 12 million per year.

At roughly LKR 328 to the US dollar, that is approximately US$36,500 per year.

Ten corporate partners supporting 20 players each would create:

200 employed rugby players.

That represents approximately LKR 120 million in annual player income, or roughly US$365,000.

Suddenly, sponsorship isn’t simply paying for banners, jerseys and match-day activation. It is helping keep 200 young people in rugby.

And those players are also gaining:

employment experience
financial independence
professional networks
workplace skills
a reason to remain in the sport

That is a much more powerful sponsorship proposition.

Rugby could become part of the player’s career — not a barrier to it

This is particularly important in a country where parents quite reasonably ask:

“What will my son do after rugby?”

We should be able to answer:

“He can study, work and play rugby.”

That is the model.

Not:

“He can play rugby and hopefully something works out later.”

If we want to retain players, player welfare must become part of performance strategy.

A player who is worried about money, employment or what happens after their sporting career cannot be expected to make the same decisions as a player who has some economic security. The solution is therefore not simply to tell players to be more committed. We need to make commitment viable.

The players can also become part of the solution

There is another opportunity within the academy model. Elite young players are not only athletes. They can become coaches, mentors and community leaders.

A regional academy could employ selected senior or elite players to:

conduct school clinics
assist academy sessions
coach younger age groups
run holiday programmes
support grassroots festivals
conduct introductory rugby programmes
mentor younger players

This creates a virtuous cycle.

Elite player → coach → younger player → future academy player

And the player earns additional income while developing valuable coaching and communication skills. Instead of constantly importing expertise into the system, we begin growing expertise inside the system.

What should the franchise model become?

I don’t think the answer is necessarily to abandon the new franchise concept. In fact, it could become much more valuable. But its role should be different. The franchise structure should become the top layer of the pathway, rather than the pathway itself.

Think of it as an annual elite showcase , The year could look something like:

Regional Academies

↓

U20/U23 Competition

↓

Senior Club Rugby

↓

Elite National Showcase / Franchise Competition

↓

National Selection

That creates a much more logical ecosystem. The franchise competition becomes the place where the best young players are showcased and tested. The academies become the place where players are developed. The clubs become the place where they learn to compete as adults. And the corporate sector helps make it possible for them to stay in the game.

And this is where the franchise owners could make a much bigger contribution.

Rather than viewing franchise investment purely as investment in a tournament, the commercial stakeholders should be encouraged to think about becoming long-term development partners.

For example, each commercial partner could commit to a regional academy for three to five years.

The commitment could include:

academy funding
equipment
coaching support
employment opportunities
scholarships
internships
medical and welfare support
community rugby programmes

The exact commercial structure would obviously need to be negotiated.

But the principle is simple:

Don’t just invest in the product. Invest in the pipeline that produces the product.

That is how professional sporting ecosystems become sustainable.

The elephant in the room: selection

There is another issue that needs to be handled carefully. Whenever a small number of organisations control access to elite opportunities, transparency becomes extremely important. This is not an accusation against any individual, franchise, school or administrator. It is simply a principle of good sports governance.

If 140 players are selected from a much larger population, players and parents should understand:

what the selection criteria are
who makes the decisions
how performance is assessed
how fitness is assessed
how discipline and behaviour are considered
how conflicts of interest are managed
how players outside traditional rugby power centres can be identified

The more transparent the process, the more credibility the system has. And if the stated objective is to identify the country’s best future players, then the system must actively protect itself from perceptions of favouritism, school bias, geography, connections or commercial influence.

Meritocracy must not only exist. It must be visible.

The question we should really be asking

The question isn’t:

“Is the new franchise competition good or bad?”

It can be good. It can provide valuable exposure. It can bring commercial investment into rugby. It can improve the playing environment. It can help selectors identify talent. All of that can be true. But another statement can also be true:

A good competition is not necessarily a good development system.

And Sri Lanka’s problem is much bigger than the absence of another competition. Our problem is the loss of players between school and senior international rugby. If more than 90% of young players are reportedly leaving the game after school, then our priority should be to understand why — and then design the system around preventing that loss.

Let's measure what actually matters

Perhaps the biggest change Sri Lankan rugby needs is a change in what we consider success.

Instead of asking only:

How many matches did we play?
How many spectators attended?
How many sponsors did we attract?
How much media coverage did we receive?
We should also ask:

Development KPIs

Player retention

How many U19 players are still playing at 20?
At 21?
At 22?
At 23?

Performance

How many academy players progress into Division I?
How many enter the national pool?
How many earn international caps?

Welfare

How many players have employment?
How many are studying?
How many have access to medical and psychological support?

Geographic development

How many players are coming from outside the traditional rugby centres?

Coaching

How many academy players transition into coaching?

Financial sustainability

How much does it cost to retain and develop one player for a year?

These numbers would tell us far more about the health of Sri Lankan rugby than the success of any single tournament.

From a tournament economy to a rugby ecosystem

This is ultimately what I am proposing.

Not fewer sponsors. Not fewer competitions. Not the elimination of franchise rugby. And certainly not an attack on the people trying to bring investment and innovation into the game. I am proposing that we change where we put the centre of gravity.

Instead of:

School → short-term elite tournament → national selection

we should build:

Grassroots → School → Regional Academy → U20/U23 → Club → Elite Showcase → National Team

with:

Education + Employment + Welfare

running through the entire system.

And around that:

Corporate investment + SLR governance + club participation + regional development.

That is a rugby ecosystem.

So, can Sri Lanka ever be competitive in international rugby?

Yes.

But not because we discovered another clever competition format. Not because we put talented 18-year-olds into four franchises for a few weeks. And not because we make rugby look more professional from the outside.

Sri Lanka will become more competitive when we become better at keeping talented players in rugby long enough for them to become mature international players.

That requires patience.
It requires boring things.
It requires facilities.
It requires coaching.
It requires medical support.
It requires strength and conditioning.
It requires club rugby.
It requires employment.
It requires education.
It requires player welfare.

It requires transparent selection.

And, most importantly, it requires continuity.

The best sporting systems in the world are not built around one event. They are built around thousands of small decisions made consistently over many years.

My proposal

If Sri Lankan rugby is serious about long-term international competitiveness, I would propose the following:

1. Establish four regional rugby academies

Create sustainable regional centres for U20/U23 players rather than relying primarily on short-term camps.

2. Integrate academies with club rugby

Academy players should have clear routes into senior club rugby, including appropriate Division II and development competitions.

3. Create a genuine U20/U23 competition

Give players meaningful competitive rugby between school and senior international rugby.

4. Turn corporate sponsorship into employment

Encourage companies to employ academy players through flexible work/sport arrangements.

5. Make player welfare a performance intervention

Provide structured support around income, education, employment, nutrition, medical care and career planning.

6. Create a player-to-coach pathway

Allow selected elite players to earn income through coaching clinics, grassroots programmes and academy assistance.

7. Make commercial stakeholders long-term development partners

Encourage franchise and corporate investors to commit to academies over three-to-five-year periods rather than focusing solely on individual competitions.

8. Retain the franchise competition — but change its role

Use it as an annual elite showcase, selection environment and commercial product sitting at the top of the pathway.

9. Publish transparent selection and governance principles

Make merit, performance, fitness, discipline and development potential central to selection — and make the process credible and visible.

10. Measure retention, not just participation

The ultimate KPI should be:

How many talented 18-year-olds are still playing high-level rugby five years later?

That is the number that matters.

The final question

Sri Lanka is not short of rugby talent. We are short of systems that allow talent to survive. So before we celebrate the next new competition, the next new franchise, the next sponsor or the next trendy sporting concept, perhaps we should ask a slightly uncomfortable question:

Who are we actually building this for?

Are we building it for the event? For the investors? For the sponsors? For the administrators? For the audience? Or are we building it for the 19-year-old rugby player who wants to keep playing but needs a reason to believe that rugby can have a place in his future?

Because if we build the system around that player, everyone else eventually benefits.

The player gets a pathway.
The clubs get better players.
The academies get purpose.
The sponsors get a sustainable property.
The franchises get better talent.
The national team gets better-developed athletes.

And Sri Lankan rugby gets something it has been missing for far too long:

A pathway that doesn’t end when school does.