Strategy

After a great few days in the Czech Republic (of which I was informed that people wished the country to be referred to as Czechia) with many of the wheelchair rugby Member Nations I was able to share my thoughts and review of our previous strategic phase that started back in 2019.

I remember developing the plan with many colleagues and recognising that it was ambitious, I now find myself still wanting the same level of ambition but challenge myself with a level of realism. It's important not to take away the aspiration of wanting to achieve significant changes, progress, success or whatever term you want to apply.

I wanted to take the time to recognise the incremental steps and successes World Wheelchair Rugby has made whilst always recognising that not everything has been achieved.

Looking forward to 2025 and finalising our next exciting strategic phase. If you want to read the full review please read on.

2019-2024 Strategy Reviewed

As I look at our seven strategic goals, I remember the level of ambition that we set in determining these. We have always been ambitious, and we must maintain this level of aspiration, but some realism needs to be included as well.

When looking at the numbers of member nations then we have seen there is no significant growth except for some new members. Development at the grassroots level needs to strengthen and I want to understand more about our role as an international body in this area.

We have not directly increased our revenues and whilst we now have a clearer financial system that helps us track our expenditure and revenue, corporate sponsorship is still a challenge. There has been interest recently and I believe this comes from some of the foundation work we have done in establishing our business and brand.

Managing and developing the way we broadcast the sport has proved challenging and there have been some improvements made in how we stream our events and create a library of videos. As the rights holder we have sold some of this content, mostly at a minimal cost in the interest of creating better promotion but there is a commercial interest, and this needs more work.

Underpinning all of this is our capacity as an organisation. Our working groups are often stretched and as volunteers what we achieve is both significant and outstanding, but we all know the limits and the strains that this takes on individuals.

It is worthwhile taking time to look at what has been achieved and has been successful. Recognising these achievements is important. I am acutely aware of how much more needs to be done and the many challenges we have not just as an International Federation but for you, our Member Nations.

The strategic phase started in 2019 just after a successful World Championship in Australia. We saw the 2022 World Championship in Denmark which grew on what had taken place previously and was delivered to an excellent standard.

We continue to host and deliver Championship events on a regular basis.

The pandemic hit all of us hard as individuals and as a sport international competition didn't take place for over a year.

·???? As a federation, we took the opportunity to establish our administrative service, review some of our governance with changes to our statutes, rebranded to WWR and started to get a clearer idea about our financial systems,

·???? We have a Membership and Licensing System (MALS) that helps with our compliance with IPC and WADA and has improved our communication with the membership,

·???? We developed protocols so that competition could restart, and we changed our whole competition structure to make Tokyo 2020 a success.

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Specifically with events, the low point game was included in The World Games in 2022. The costs for inclusion were reduced significantly meaning less of a cost to the teams.

·???? In France in 2023, a wheelchair rugby event took place within the Rugby World Cup, delivered to an excellent standard and again a significant reduction in cost to the teams attending. We partnered with JTA, a Brand & Media company, to promote the event and they captured statistics such as 8 million estimated views based on audience reach and engagement on social media,

·???? The Women's Cup developed and for the first time two national teams competed and the important topic of how we increase female participation was specifically included in our 2022 strategic review,

·???? We updated and included documents and policies to help with athlete welfare.

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Membership calls have taken place giving the opportunity to hear what is happening and ask questions directly to WWR.

·???? Clinics have taken place to help develop wheelchair rugby at the grassroots level.

·???? Research has taken place with classification to help support evidence-based decisions

·???? We have just appointed a new Anti-Doping Manager

·???? We engaged with and learnt about other disciplines of wheelchair rugby to better understand what is happening globally. We recognised Rugby 5s as a discipline that may help develop wheelchair rugby at grassroots level. This has been taken up by several nations.

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Partnerships

·???? Our relationship is good with the IPC and our application to LA28 was successful. We have improved how we collect data to help support future applications,

·???? Our relationship with World Rugby is strong and grows with the aim for future inclusion in Rugby World Cup's but also importantly support in areas such as anti-doping, education, national partnership developments and many others such as the strategic facilitation taking place at the 2024 GA,

·???? We developed a new education partner with the World Academy of Sport,

·???? We continue our sponsorship with Molten as our ball provider,

·???? We collaborate with other Paralympic International federations and are currently strengthening the umbrella body called APSO (Association of Paralympic Sports Organisations).

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My thanks to all involved who make our sport happen.