INDIGO GROUP | PRESS RELEASE

Indigo Group has confirmed that it intends to move forward with the development of its National Rugby Academy Network across Wales following a formal response from the Welsh Rugby Union to Indigo’s proposed Strategic Partnership Framework.

The Framework was developed as an invitation to collaborate with the WRU and set out a nationally aligned model bringing together clubs, schools, Indigo Academy Franchises and the existing regional and national pathways.

Its purpose was to strengthen, rather than replace, the existing rugby ecosystem, combining the WRU’s governance, safeguarding and pathway expertise with Indigo’s local academy delivery, commercial capability, technology and community investment.

The WRU has now confirmed that, while it shares a number of Indigo’s broad objectives — including strengthening clubs and schools, developing coaches and widening participation — it does not wish at this stage to enter into the formal partnership proposed by Indigo.

Indigo respects the WRU’s right to pursue its own strategy. However, its response also raises a number of important questions about the timing, funding and delivery of future player and community development opportunities across Wales.

Rather than allow those questions to delay progress, Indigo will now proceed with the elements of its plans that sit within its own control.

The door remains open to future collaboration with the WRU, but Indigo’s immediate focus will be on building the Academy network, supporting clubs and schools, developing the Indigo App and commercial ecosystem, establishing the Indigo Rugby Benevolent Trust and creating additional development opportunities for young players across Wales.

Central to Indigo’s plans is a clearer approach to player development.

The Indigo pathway is not intended to become an alternative destination that removes young players from their clubs or schools. Clubs and schools remain where young people train, compete, build friendships and experience the game week after week.

Instead, Indigo Academies will provide an additional layer of development around those existing environments. Players will continue representing their clubs and schools while accessing additional coaching, athletic development, player profiling, mentoring and development opportunities through their local Indigo Academy.

SCHOOL & COMMUNITY RUGBY → INDIGO ACADEMY DEVELOPMENT → REPRESENTATIVE OPPORTUNITIES → REGIONAL & NATIONAL PATHWAYS

Indigo believes young players and their families should be able to understand where they are in that journey, what they need to develop and how future opportunities can be earned.

Academy activity will be designed to complement club and school commitments rather than compete with them.

The ambition remains to create more development opportunities while maintaining clear links into the established Welsh rugby pathway wherever players demonstrate the required ability and potential.

In its response, the WRU expressed concern about what it described as “pay-to-play” pathways and additional financial barriers to accessing quality coaching.

Indigo agrees completely with the principle that financial circumstances should not determine whether a child can participate, develop or progress in rugby.

Community rugby clubs across Wales do an extraordinary job of making the game accessible to young people, often while operating under significant financial and operational pressure.

That is possible because clubs, families and volunteers already contribute enormously to sustaining the grassroots game.

Parents pay annual subscriptions, buy kit and boots, travel to training and fixtures, support fundraising events and sell raffle tickets. Thousands of volunteers also give their time freely to coach teams, organise fixtures, raise funds, maintain facilities and perform the countless other roles that allow community clubs to function.

None of that is a criticism of clubs. Quite the opposite.

It demonstrates how much community rugby already depends upon the commitment, generosity and financial contribution of families and volunteers.

That is why Indigo believes the debate around so-called “pay-to-play” pathways needs to reflect the reality experienced every week at grassroots level.

The issue is not whether families contribute financially to rugby. They already do, and community clubs work incredibly hard to ensure those costs remain as manageable as possible.

The more important question is how the wider rugby system can help those clubs and families carry that burden — by creating greater value, bringing additional investment into grassroots rugby and ensuring that financial circumstances never prevent a young person from accessing a development opportunity.

Indigo’s intention is therefore not to compete with community clubs for family spending, but to build an ecosystem that supports them.

The Indigo Rugby Benevolent Trust will provide targeted support with costs including Academy membership, kit, boots and equipment, travel, representative opportunities, hardship and wellbeing, subject to clear eligibility, governance and impact reporting.

Through the Indigo App, commercial partnerships, cashback, rewards and other benefits, Indigo’s objective is to reduce the net cost of participation and return meaningful value to families. Based on Indigo’s current commercial model, the objective remains for participating families who actively use the ecosystem to access annual savings and benefits worth in excess of five times their Academy spend. If affordability is genuinely a priority for Welsh rugby, the conversation should begin with recognising the financial reality that clubs, volunteers and families are already managing — and asking how the wider game can do more to support them.

That distinction is fundamental to the Indigo model.

The Academy fee should not simply be viewed as another cost in isolation. The wider ecosystem is structured so that, where families actively use the App and its commercial benefits, the value returned to them can substantially exceed the cost of Academy participation.

Families should not simply be asked to spend more on rugby. Rugby should find ways of giving value back to families.

Indigo also believes that accessibility should be considered across the entire rugby experience.

For families, the cost of participating at grassroots level exists alongside the cost of supporting the national game.

For a family attending a Wales international, the combined cost of tickets, travel, food and other expenditure can, depending on the fixture and circumstances, exceed £400.

If affordability is to become a genuine strategic principle within Welsh rugby, Indigo believes it should be considered consistently — from a child joining a community club, through development opportunities, to a family being able to watch and engage with the national team.

A child’s relationship with Welsh rugby does not begin at an elite pathway and it does not end at their local club.

The whole experience matters.

The WRU has stated that it is developing its own long-term strategy for community and player development, including a comprehensive Welsh Rugby DNA covering how Wales plays and how Wales coaches.

Indigo welcomes that ambition.

However, important practical questions remain:

When will those proposals move from development into delivery?

When will clubs, coaches, schools, players and parents begin to see the benefits?

What additional development opportunities will young players receive in the meantime?

How will any expanded community, coaching, competition and player development structures be sustainably funded against the significant financial pressures already facing Welsh rugby?

And how will the governing body ensure that quality development opportunities are genuinely available across the whole of Wales, rather than being determined by geography, existing selection or a family’s financial circumstances?

Indigo believes those are reasonable questions for the Welsh rugby community to ask.

A significant part of the Indigo approach will remain a greater emphasis on long-term potential rather than early selection alone.

The proposed player profiling model will look across technical, tactical, physical and behavioural development while recognising that young people mature at different rates and that early physical advantage should not be confused with long-term potential.

Indigo’s objective is to create more opportunities for players who may develop later physically but demonstrate qualities including skill, decision-making, game understanding, coachability, resilience, attitude and commitment.

Players should be reviewed throughout their development rather than defined by whether they were selected — or not selected — at one particular age.

Representative honours should be earned. The opportunity to develop should remain open.

Indigo welcomes the WRU’s intention to develop a comprehensive Welsh Rugby DNA covering how Wales plays, how Wales coaches and the philosophy underpinning coach education.

Greater alignment across Welsh rugby has the potential to be extremely positive.

However, Indigo believes any new coaching framework must also address the practical experience of the thousands of volunteer coaches currently delivering junior rugby across Wales.

At Under-11 level, coaches are currently required to undertake formal coaching qualifications. A Level 1 qualification costs approximately £120 and progression to Level 2 approximately £250.

A typical junior age group may have around four coaches involved in delivery.

That means clubs and volunteer coaches can collectively be committing significant amounts of money to coach education before taking into account the considerable time those individuals already give freely to the game.

Indigo believes there is also a legitimate question around how relevant existing qualifications are to the day-to-day realities of coaching young children.

Junior coaching requires its own skills.

It involves understanding how children learn, how to communicate with different ages and abilities, how to create enjoyable and engaging sessions, how to build confidence and fundamental movement skills, how to manage differing stages of physical and emotional development, and how to retain young people in the sport.

Indigo’s concern is that existing qualifications do not always provide enough practical, age-specific content to support coaches facing those challenges every week.

If Welsh rugby is going to invest in a new national coaching philosophy, Indigo believes junior coaching must sit at the heart of it rather than simply applying versions of adult or performance coaching principles further down the age groups.

Coach education should not simply be about achieving a qualification. It should make somebody demonstrably better equipped to coach the children standing in front of them.

Indigo notes the WRU’s intention to develop a comprehensive Welsh Rugby DNA covering technical principles, playing philosophy, coaching methodology and coach education.

Indigo supports the principle of greater alignment across Welsh rugby and would welcome the opportunity to understand and engage with that framework as it develops.

A national playing and coaching philosophy can provide valuable consistency.

However, Indigo believes alignment must mean more than introducing another framework or accreditation requirement.

If volunteer coaches are expected to invest their own time and, in many cases, money in qualifications, that education needs to deliver clear and practical value at the age group they actually coach.

For a coach working with Under-11 players, the priority should be becoming a better Under-11 coach — not simply completing a generic qualification that has limited relevance to the environment in which they operate.

Indigo’s proposed coaching model will therefore include age-specific coach development, mentoring and continuing professional development focused on the practical needs of junior players.

Indigo does not believe alignment and additional development opportunities are mutually exclusive.

If a clear and effective Welsh Rugby DNA is established, Indigo Academies would be open to aligning appropriately with that philosophy while continuing to provide additional local coaching and development opportunities for young players.

Indigo remains willing to explore any future accreditation system that is transparent, independently credible and available fairly to appropriate rugby development providers.

The emerging Academy Franchise network brings together significant experience from professional and international rugby.

Academy Franchise Partners include Jonathan Davies, James Hook, Taulupe Faletau, Scott Baldwin, Ben Flower and Lloyd White, alongside experienced coaches already deeply embedded within Welsh rugby’s age-grade development environments.

Richie Rees and Duane Goodfield will oversee the quality and consistency of coaching delivery across the Indigo academies.

Drawing on their experience within professional and international rugby, including Level 4 coaching expertise, they will help ensure appropriate due diligence, coaching standards, programme quality and ongoing coach development are maintained across the network.

Each Academy Franchise will operate within a consistent coaching framework while ensuring that delivery remains appropriate to the age, stage and development needs of individual players.

The ambition is to bring elite rugby knowledge closer to communities while maintaining consistently high standards across the network.

Alongside rugby coaching, academy programmes are intended to incorporate age-appropriate development in movement, speed, coordination, strength, decision-making, nutrition, recovery, leadership and wellbeing.

The philosophy is to develop young people for the long term rather than encourage premature specialisation or judge success solely by representative selection.

Coach development will also form an important part of the model, with Indigo Academies becoming local learning environments where coaches can share knowledge, access mentoring and participate in continuing professional development.

The WRU has also expressed concern about additional competitions potentially making the development landscape more complicated for players and parents.

Indigo understands that concern.

Its proposed East vs West Wales Representative Programme and Festival is not intended to replace existing representative rugby, nor to create competing national structures.

It is intended to create an additional high-quality development and aspirational opportunity for young people.

Players would earn selection through performance, commitment and development across the season.

The programme would also provide an opportunity to celebrate the clubs, schools, coaches, referees, volunteers and families responsible for developing those players.

Indigo remains willing to discuss how such opportunities could complement future WRU competition structures and avoid unnecessary duplication.

Indigo Group’s proposal was never simply about creating a network of rugby academies.

A major part of the Strategic Partnership Framework was the development of a national digital and commercial ecosystem through the Indigo App, designed to connect players, parents, supporters, clubs, schools, academies, businesses and commercial partners.

Indigo will use the scale of that connected rugby community to create new and recurring sources of commercial income.

Through memberships, commercial partnerships, sponsorship, rewards and cashback, events, digital engagement and other services delivered through the Indigo App, the model creates tangible value for families while generating sustainable revenues around grassroots rugby.

Under the proposed partnership, Indigo believed that growing commercial ecosystem could ultimately have generated additional income capable of supporting priorities across the Welsh game.

With the WRU deciding not to pursue that partnership at this stage, Indigo will now develop the commercial ecosystem independently.

With the WRU deciding not to proceed with the wider Strategic Partnership Framework at this stage, Indigo has decided to proceed with development of the Indigo App and its associated commercial ecosystem independently.

That means the economic value created by the platform will initially be developed around the Indigo Academy network, its members, families, communities and the Indigo Rugby Benevolent Trust rather than through a formal commercial partnership with the WRU.

As membership and engagement grow, Indigo intends to build a national community through which families can access meaningful financial benefits while commercial partners gain access to an engaged rugby audience.

Families receive value. Businesses reach communities. Rugby benefits.

Rather than continually asking families, clubs and volunteers to contribute more, the objective is to capture value from the collective scale and spending power surrounding rugby and redirect part of that value back into the game.

For families experiencing genuine financial hardship, the Indigo Rugby Benevolent Trust is intended to provide a further layer of support.

The Trust will help with costs including membership fees, kit, boots and equipment, travel, representative opportunities, hardship support and wellbeing, supported by clear eligibility, governance and impact reporting.

Commercial growth across the wider Indigo ecosystem will translate into greater opportunity for children and families facing genuine financial barriers.

A young person’s opportunity to play, develop or progress should never be determined by their family’s ability to pay.

Indigo’s ambition extends beyond identifying talented players. The model is intended to support participation, affordability, player retention, coach development, volunteering, community activity, local businesses and stronger rugby clubs.

For clubs, that means the potential for greater participation, stronger player retention, additional coaching support and new commercial opportunities. For families, it means reducing the net cost of participation through the value created by the Indigo ecosystem. For players, it means more opportunities to develop and progress regardless of geography, background or financial circumstances.

For businesses, it creates an opportunity to engage meaningfully with rugby communities while seeing part of the economic value generated reinvested into those communities.

Each Academy Franchise will become a local rugby development hub, supporting relationships with clubs and schools, coach development, community participation and opportunities for young people at different stages of their rugby journey.

Every Academy Franchise should leave its local rugby community stronger than it found it.

“We appreciate that the WRU has now considered our proposal and provided a clear response.”

“We also recognise that the Union has every right to develop its own strategy for Welsh rugby. Where I think we disagree is whether we should wait for that strategy to be completed before creating additional opportunities that can be delivered now.”

“The WRU has said it is developing its own long-term approach. That is entirely legitimate, but players, parents, coaches and clubs will reasonably want to know when that approach will become operational, what it will provide and how it will be funded.”

“We cannot answer those questions for the WRU. What we can do is get on with the things within our control.”

“I also think the description of our model as ‘pay-to-play’ needs some context.”

“Families involved in grassroots rugby are already paying. They pay club subscriptions. They buy boots and kit. They travel. They sell raffle tickets. They attend fundraising events. In many cases, they give hundreds of hours of their time to keep clubs functioning.”

“None of that is a criticism of community clubs. It is the opposite. It demonstrates just how heavily Welsh rugby already relies on families and volunteers.”

“So the challenge is not to pretend that participation carries no cost. The challenge is to make rugby as affordable as possible, create genuine value for families and make absolutely sure that a child is not excluded from an opportunity simply because their family cannot afford it.”

“That is why the Benevolent Trust is part of our model and why the commercial ecosystem matters.”

“The Indigo App is designed to change the economics for families. Based on our current commercial model, an active family should be able to access savings and benefits worth in excess of five times their Academy spend.”

“So this is not simply about asking a parent to pay an Academy fee. We are building an ecosystem designed to give families substantially more value back than they put into the Academy.”

“We also need consistency in how we talk about affordability. A family can spend hundreds of pounds attending a Wales international once tickets, travel and the rest of the day are taken into account. If access matters — and it absolutely does — then we should be prepared to look honestly at affordability across every level of the game.”

“We welcome the WRU’s work on a Welsh Rugby DNA. If there is a clear national philosophy about how Wales wants to play and coach, we see no reason why good development providers should not be able to align with it.”

“But coaching alignment also has to work for the volunteers at the coalface of junior rugby.”

“At Under-11 level, coaches are required to obtain qualifications, with Level 1 costing around £120 and Level 2 around £250. A single age group can easily have four coaches. That represents a real investment of money and, more importantly, time from people who are already giving their services to the game for free.”

“Those volunteers deserve brilliant coach education. The question we have to be prepared to ask is whether the current courses genuinely prepare somebody to coach an eight, nine, ten or eleven-year-old child.”

“Junior coaching is not simply senior rugby delivered with smaller players. It requires an understanding of child development, communication, enjoyment, movement, confidence, retention and how children actually learn.”

“If we are developing a new Welsh Rugby DNA and a new philosophy for coaching, this is a huge opportunity to get that right. Every pound and every hour a volunteer coach invests in their development should make them more effective with the children they actually coach.”

“Alignment does not require everything to be delivered by one organisation.”

“Our Academies are not designed to take children away from their clubs or schools and they are not designed to replace the established pathway.”

“A child should be able to play for their school and community club, receive additional development through an Indigo Academy, earn representative opportunities and, if they demonstrate the required potential, progress into the established regional and national pathways.”

“We also remain concerned about players who fall outside those pathways early.”

“If somebody isn’t selected at 13 or 14, that should not mean the pathway has closed. Children mature at different rates. We want to keep developing them, challenging them and giving them opportunities to show what they can become.”

“We respect the fact that the WRU has chosen not to enter into the partnership we proposed. But that decision does not require Indigo to stop.”

“We have experienced coaches, former internationals, committed Franchise Partners, technology, commercial capability and people across Wales who want to create more opportunities for young players.”

“So we are moving from proposal to delivery.”

“If the WRU’s strategy develops in a way that creates opportunities for genuine collaboration, our door remains open.”

“In the meantime, we will build.”

Indigo Group will now move from proposing the Strategic Partnership Framework to implementing the elements that sit within its own control.

These include Academy development, additional coaching and athlete development, coach mentoring, community engagement, commercial partnerships, development of the Indigo App and establishment of the Indigo Rugby Benevolent Trust.

Where activities require WRU recognition, formal approval, regulatory cooperation or integration with existing WRU structures, Indigo will continue to seek appropriate dialogue and will not imply authority it does not have.

The objective remains stronger clubs and schools, increased participation and retention, better-developed coaches and players, fewer financial barriers and sustainable commercial investment flowing back into grassroots rugby.

ONE NATIONAL PATHWAY. DELIVERED LOCALLY.

ONE PATHWAY. NO BARRIERS.

FROM PROPOSAL TO ACTION.

EDITORIAL NOTE: References to potential future income, App savings and commercial value are forward-looking ambitions based on Indigo’s current model and should not be presented as guaranteed outcomes. Any formal pathway integration requiring WRU recognition remains subject to the relevant governing arrangements. Figures relating to coach qualification costs and family matchday costs should be checked against current WRU pricing and the relevant fixture circumstances before external publication.