INDIGO GROUP | PRESS RELEASE

ONE NATIONAL PATHWAY. DELIVERED LOCALLY.

Indigo Group has confirmed it will move forward with 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 an invitation to collaborate with the WRU, combining the Union’s governance, safeguarding and pathway expertise with Indigo’s local academy delivery, commercial capability, technology and community investment.

The WRU has confirmed it shares several of Indigo’s broad objectives, including strengthening clubs and schools, developing coaches and widening participation, but does not wish to enter into the formal partnership at this stage.

Indigo respects the WRU’s right to pursue its own strategy. Its response raises important questions about the timing, funding and delivery of future development opportunities, and Indigo will proceed with the elements of its plans that sit within its own control.

Indigo’s immediate focus will be 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. The door remains open to future collaboration with the WRU.

Central to Indigo’s plans is a clearer approach to player development. The Indigo pathway is not an alternative destination that removes young players from their clubs or schools: clubs and schools remain where young people train, compete and build friendships week after week.

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

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

Academy activity is designed to complement club and school commitments, not compete with them, while maintaining clear links into the established Welsh rugby pathway wherever players demonstrate the required ability and potential.

In its response, the WRU raised concerns about “pay-to-play” pathways and financial barriers to quality coaching. Indigo agrees that financial circumstances should never determine whether a child can participate, develop or progress in rugby.

Community clubs across Wales already do an extraordinary job of making the game accessible, often under financial and operational pressure, sustained by families who pay subscriptions, buy kit, travel to fixtures and volunteer thousands of hours, showing how much grassroots rugby already depends on their commitment.

The Indigo Rugby Benevolent Trust will provide targeted support with Academy membership, kit, boots, equipment, travel, representative opportunities, hardship and wellbeing costs, subject to clear eligibility and governance. Through the Indigo App and its commercial partnerships, Indigo’s objective is to return value to families rather than add another cost. Based on its current commercial model, active families could receive savings and benefits worth several times their Academy spend.

Affordability should also be considered across the whole game, not only at grassroots level. For a family attending a Wales international, the combined cost of tickets, travel and food can exceed £400. A child’s relationship with Welsh rugby stretches from the local club to the national team, and Indigo believes affordability should be considered consistently across that whole journey.

The WRU has stated it is developing its own long-term strategy for community and player development, including a Welsh Rugby DNA covering how Wales plays and coaches. Indigo welcomes that ambition, but believes important questions remain:

• When will those proposals move from development into delivery?
• How will expanded community, coaching, competition and development structures be sustainably funded against the financial pressures already facing Welsh rugby?
• How will quality development opportunities be made genuinely available across all of Wales, rather than 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 is a greater emphasis on long-term potential rather than early selection. Player profiling will look across technical, tactical, physical and behavioural development, recognising that young people mature at different rates. Players who develop later physically, but show skill, decision-making, coachability and commitment, should continue to have opportunities to progress. 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 playing philosophy, coaching methodology and coach education, and supports the principle of greater alignment across Welsh rugby.

However, any new framework must also work for the thousands of volunteer coaches delivering junior rugby. At Under-11 level, coaches must undertake formal qualifications costing around £120 for Level 1 and £250 for Level 2, often across four coaches per age group: a real investment of money on top of the many hours already given for free. Indigo believes junior coaching needs its own age-specific approach, understanding how children learn and develop, and how to make sessions enjoyable, build confidence and keep young people in the sport.

Indigo would welcome the chance to align Indigo Academies with a clear Welsh Rugby DNA once established, and remains open to any future accreditation system that is transparent, independently credible and fairly available to rugby development providers.

The emerging Academy Franchise network brings together significant experience from professional and international rugby, including Franchise Partners Jonathan Davies, James Hook, Taulupe Faletau, Scott Baldwin, Ben Flower and Lloyd White. Duane Goodfield and other level 4 coaches will oversee coaching quality and consistency across the network, drawing on their Level 4 coaching expertise.

Alongside rugby coaching, Academy programmes will incorporate age-appropriate development in movement, speed, coordination, strength, nutrition, recovery, leadership and wellbeing, developing young people for the long term rather than judging success solely by representative selection.

Indigo understands the WRU’s concern that additional competitions could complicate the development landscape for players and parents. Its proposed East vs West Wales Representative Programme and Festival is not intended to replace existing representative rugby, but to create an additional development and aspirational opportunity, with selection earned through performance and commitment across the season. Indigo remains willing to discuss how this could complement future WRU competition structures.

A major part of Indigo’s proposal was a national digital and commercial ecosystem through the Indigo App, connecting players, parents, clubs, schools, academies, businesses and commercial partners to create new, recurring sources of commercial income for the game.

With the WRU deciding not to proceed with the wider partnership at this stage, Indigo will develop the App and its commercial ecosystem independently, initially built around the Academy network, its members and the Benevolent Trust. As membership grows, Indigo intends to build a national community through which families access financial benefits while commercial partners reach an engaged rugby audience. The model is designed to benefit families, businesses and rugby alike: capturing value from the collective scale of the game and redirecting it back into grassroots rugby, rather than asking families, clubs and volunteers to contribute more.

Indigo’s ambition extends beyond identifying talented players, aiming to support participation, affordability, retention, coach development, volunteering and stronger local businesses. Each Academy Franchise will become a local development hub, and every one should leave its community stronger than it found it.

“We 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.”

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

“Families involved in grassroots rugby are already paying: club subscriptions, boots and kit, travel, fundraising, and often hundreds of hours of their time. The challenge is to make rugby as affordable as possible and make sure no child is excluded from an opportunity because their family cannot afford it.”

“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.”

“Our Academies are not designed to take children away from their clubs or schools, and they are not designed to replace the established pathway. We respect that the WRU has chosen not to enter into the partnership we proposed, but that decision does not require Indigo to stop. 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 within its own control: 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 or integration with existing 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.

Indigo WRU Strategic Partnership Framework