HKRFU Chairman Trevor Gregory appointed President of Asian Rugby Football Union

Friday, 20 December 2013 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Hong Kong Rugby Football Union (HKRFU) Chairman Trevor Gregory has been elected President of the Asian Rugby Football Union (ARFU). Commenting on his appointment Gregory, who has served as an ARFU Executive Committee member for six years including four as Vice President, said: “It is a great honour for me personally and for the Hong Kong Rugby Football Union to be nominated and elected by my peers in the Asian Rugby family to represent Asia as the President of ARFU; particularly at this most exciting time for the Game in the region.” Gregory will assume the post with immediate effect, replacing outgoing President Thailand’s Adisek Hemyoo, who stepped down after four years in the role.

Other ARFU appointments include that of Low Teo Ping, President of the Singapore Rugby Union as ARFU Vice President, and Asanga Seneviratne, President of the Sri Lanka Rugby Football Union, as Honorary Secretary General. Seneviratne is replacing Ross Mitchell, who is stepping down after six years in the post. Mike Haynes, HKRFU Director of Youth, has also been elected as the new Honorary Treasurer, replacing Dermot Agnew who has stepped away from ARFU after serving as Honorary Treasurer for twenty years. Aga Hussain, Vice President of the Indian Rugby Football Union, Qais Abdulla Al Dhalai, Secretary General of the United Arab Emirates Rugby Federation, and Yuichi Ueno of the Japan Rugby Football Union have been elected to the ARFU Executive Committee in Cambodia. All elected officials serve an initial two-year term. From the 2014 Annual General Meeting of ARFU, scheduled to take place in Dubai, the Executive Committee will be expanded from ten to twelve, with one of the positions reserved for a female representative. ARFU has trebled its membership in the past decade alone, and now has 28 members, sixteen of which are full IRB members while six are associate IRB members. The Indonesia Rugby Union (Persatuan Rugby Union Indonesia) and the Brunei Rugby Union are the most recent ARFU members to receive this status in November 2013 with Indonesia becoming a full IRB member and Brunei becoming an associate member. Four potential new members are also in the process of applying to join ARFU including Bangladesh, Nepal, Tajikistan and Vietnam. “With 60% of the world’s population and 80% of the world’s youth but less than 6% of the rugby playing population of the world, Asia is a region that the International Rugby Board is working with closely to grow the game at every level from grassroots through to high performance,” said Gregory. “With the first Rugby World Cup to be held in Asia in Japan in 2019, we are committed to leveraging this platform to further catalyse growth and positioning ARFU as a leader in the game for both men and women.”