Asia Rugby 2024-2028 Executive Committee Elections Nominees

Asia Rugby is holding its elections for the Asia Rugby Executive Committee on November 8 2024 at its AGM in Bangkok, Thailand on the eve of the final Asia Rugby Emirates Sevens Series to hold its Asia Rugby 2024-2028 Executive Committee Elections.

In the region’s governing body’s own words, “The elections will determine key leadership roles within Asia Rugby, with the selected members poised to lead the organisation and shape the future of rugby across Asia over the next four years.”

It should be noted that World Rugby has suspended funding to Asia Rugby and monies required to host the Asia Rugby AGM would be paid directly to the Thai Rugby Union (TRU) as hosts if Asia Rugby requested it – following the Ernst & Young audit carried out which revealed several areas of concern in the governance and financial accountability of Asia Rugby (we will provide more details this week on the follow-up to our previous published article.)

Key to these Asia Rugby elections are the presidential race between incumbent Qais Al Dhalai (United Arab Emirates) who is also the Arab Rugby President and running for World Rugby later in November, and his challenger, current World Rugby seat holder and President of the Philippines Rugby Football Union, Ada Milby 

Not all associate members of Asia Rugby are entitled to vote, as far as we know, but only Full Member status unions. It is undoubtedly going to be a hotly contested election with some stark differences between some of the candidates.

There are five female candidates by our count running for senior leadership roles in Asia Rugby’s new committees.

Electoral Committee – Asia Rugby 2024-2028 Executive Committee Elections November 2024

Asia Rugby confirmed it has appointed three members to its Electoral Committee to “oversee and ensure a fair and transparent electoral process, and this Electoral Committee includes:

• Mr. Ramesh Lachmanan – Chair of the Judicial Committee, appointed as Chair of the Electoral Committee.
• Ms Patricia Leahy – Deputy Chair of the Asia Rugby Advisory Board
• Mr. Raja Lal – Retired Partner at Ernst & Young,

The Electoral Committee has the authority to appoint two Scrutineers from non-voting members of the Council who are responsible for tallying votes and presenting the results to the Chairman of the AGM – this is in accordance with Asia Rugby’s governance protocols.

Positions Open for Election at 2024 Asia Rugby AGM

• Asia Rugby President & World Rugby Council Member  (1 position)
• Asia Rugby Deputy President (1 position)
• Asia Rugby Vice Presidents (3 positions)
• World Rugby Council Member  (1 position)
• Asia Rugby Executive Committee Members (7 positions)

Those successfully elected to the Executive Committee (EXCO) will assume office immediately following the 2024 AGM and will serve a four-year term, which will conclude at the AGM in 2028. 

Nominated candidates for the 2024-2028 Asia Rugby

** indicates they were a member of the previous Executive Committee

President & World Rugby Council Representative – 1 Position

• Qais Al Dhalai (United Arab Emirates) (Incumbent ) **
• Ada Milby (Philippines)  **

Qais Al Dhalai – Fit For Office?

Qais Al Dhalai has been President of Asia Rugby for the past 5 years and has no personal rugby playing experience himself (which should not matter we agree but it should be noted that out of the two Asia Rugby Presidential candidates and three World Chair nominees, he is the only one without any rugby-playing background).

He also is a World Rugby Executive Board Nominee in 2024 and the current Arab Rugby President as well as UAERF Vice-President. It is fair to say he has overseen Asia Rugby over a difficult period during the pandemic but there have been many unfulfilled promises under his tenure.

These include the proposed Asia Rugby Grand League (which just disappeared from conversations), as well as a lack of new commercial partnerships – Emirates is the only deal announced recently but no details have been provided on the financial value and even some EXCO members and unions we reached out to said they don’t know the financial value of the deal.

There has been an increase in World Rugby and Asia Rugby member status to full membership unions in Asia which is a credit but the status of several could be labelled as controversial such as Sri Lanka Rugby Union and Cambodia Federation of Rugby.

What will be of most concern, are the recent financial and governance revelations which are severe – currently, World Rugby has suspended funding to Asia Rugby and there are red flags aplenty – in areas in which Qais Al Dhalai has had direct oversight.

The President of Asia Rugby needs to be able to form partnerships and have productive relationships with global entities and World Rugby.

In some of the most recent correspondence between Qais and World Rugby – directed at current World Rugby Chair Bill Beaumont- the Asia Rugby President called World Rugby’s actions of its Executive Board to suspend all funding as “draconian, unhelpful and against the spirit of the values of World Rugby and the sport in general.”

For anyone who has read the E&Y Audit – it is incredibly clear there are serious concerns and World Rugby had stated that until such time as the serious issues regarding Asia Rugby’s domicile and financial controls and processes had been satisfactorily addressed – the suspension would remain in place.

We also know that other Asia Rugby member unions have addressed their concerns with Asia Rugby of the findings.

Among Qais ambitions are:

• Proactively and aggressively focusing on visibility and using innovative outreach programs and stronger relationships between unions
• Expansion and creating opportunities for all nations
• Modernisation of the game

Ada Milby – Will New Ideas Steady The Ship

You can read more in a recent interview we had with Ada here.

Ada Milby is already an accomplished leader in World, Asian, and Philippines rugby, having held several governance roles and represented the PRFU in 7s and XVs rugby at an international level. She has also broken glass ceilings in the women’s leadership context and was the first woman elected to the World Rugby EXCO in 2023 and been part of the Asia Rugby Executive Board since 2016.

It could be argued that she has been part of the same Asia Rugby EXCO under which the dark clouds sit following the E&Y World Rugby Audit, but as far as we are aware, she hadn’t sat on any of the Asia Rugby Financial committees.

Milby has been a strong advocate for the game’s development and promoting women’s rugby development and successfully campaigned for changes to the Rugby World Cup providing Asia the opportunity for more representation at rugby’s pinnacle events.

She says in her election manifesto, “With years of experience in playing, coaching, administration, and rugby development, I have championed governance reforms to support diversity and inclusion, driven strategy to increase the visibility of rugby throughout the continent, and directly supported the development of coaches, referees, and administrators.”

Among her ambitions are:

• Diversifying revenue streams and robust financial management control systems.
• Supporting high-performance success and the growth of the community game
• Improving the reach of the game and the strength of the unions & federations in the region as well as meaningful competitions.
• Collaborative and transparent governance and targeted support.

Deputy President – 1 Position

• Terence Khoo (Singapore) (Incumbent ) **
• Fawzi Khawaja (Pakistan) **
• Yoon Choi (Korea)

Vice President – 3 Positions

• Kakhramon Djalilov (Uzbekistan) **
• Kensuke Iwabuchi (Japan)
• Manat Chavanaprayoon (Thailand)
• Rizwan Ur Rab Malik (Pakistan)
• Tanka Lal Ghising (Nepal) **
• Yoon Choi (Korea)

World Rugby Council Representative – 1 Position

• Ada Milby (Philippines) (Incumbent ) **
• Fawzi Khawaja (Pakistan) **
• Nahid Biyarjomandi (Iran) **
• Yoon Choi (Korea)

Asia Rugby Executive Committee – 7 Positions

• Jaesub Choi (Korea)  (Incumbent ) **
• Abdallah Jammal (Lebanon)
• Aigul Jartybayeva (Kazakhstan)
• Angelina Liu (Singapore)
• Anita Wang, Shiang Fen (Chinese Taipei)
• Batbayar Pureviargal (Mongolia)
• Christopher Brooke (Hong Kong China)
• Gerald Prabhu (India)
• Kensuke Iwabuchi (Japan)
• Mohamad Fahmy Bin Abd Jalil (Malaysia)
• Yu Han (China)
• Yudha Ramon, SH., MH (Indonesia)

Asia Rugby says it is committed to a fair, inclusive, and transparent election process, in the Asia Rugby 2024-2028 Executive Committee Elections to select leaders who will champion the growth and success of rugby in Asia – let’s hope that is true.

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