Malaysia and Sri Lanka Men’s XV Set To Play In 2025 Asia Rugby Emirates Mens Championship Playoff Match

In what has been a confusing series of events, Malaysia Rugby has now confirmed its national Men’s XV side will play Sri Lanka in a one-off 2025 Asia Rugby Emirates Mens Championship Playoff match to determine who will be involved in the Asian top-tier – the winner of which will earn direct qualification to the Rugby World Cup 2027.

Updated 26 December 2024*

The one-off relegation and promotion match is due to be played on April 19 2025 with Malaysia Rugby (MR) honorary secretary Fahmy Jalil indicating the match is likely to be played at the Johor Rugby Stadium in Malaysia.

In Malaysian media, Jalil is reported to have said: “It will only be one match, not home-and-away. The loser will play in Division One next year while the winner will play in the Premier Division. As for now, it is likely to be played in Johor but we will make a final announcement later on closer towards the match.”

*On December 25, 2025, President of Asia Rugby Qais Al Dhalai posted online: “In relation to rumours around the Asia Rugby Emirates Championship 2025 playoff match between Sri Lanka and Malaysia, the Asian Rugby Football Union (AR) confirms that no date nor venue has been published officially. Discussion is ongoing between all parties to agree on a specific date and venue. Asia Rugby refutes any sort of news in this regard and will announce the confirmed position regarding Sri Lanka vs. Malaysia match in due course.”

He did however confirm there will be a match and that Malaysia would be hosting.

Confusion Over Which Teams Will Play – AREMC 2025 

This is now the latest in a series of issues which underline the apparent lack of transparency and accountability which are taglines the sports governing body keeps parading at official tournaments in Asia.

We have already expressed on social media how messy this has become – but here is the sequence of events:

• Pre-Asia Rugby Emirates Men’s Championship (AREMC) 2024, Asia Rugby confirmed that the bottom-placed team would be relegated to Division 1 and the winner of Division 1 would be promoted to the top tier.
• Malaysia continued its run of not having won a game in the top flight to finish bottom of the AREMC 2024 and Asia Rugby said on its website and it was reported on World Rugby’s website on 23 June 2024:
  “The defeat – their ninth in a row – means Malaysia ends the Asia Rugby Men’s Championship 2024 in last place without a win to their name and will be relegated to Division One next year.”
• Sri Lanka won Division 1 in 2024, which Asia Rugby announced would be a combined Division 1&2 and included Sri Lanka, Qatar, India, and Kazakhstan in a knockout tournament. As winners, Sri Lanka should earn a promotion to the top-tier Asia Rugby Championship in 2025 – which even Asia Rugby confirmed after the tournament and reported by a number of media outlets including on adaderana.lk “The win allows Sri Lanka to ascend to the next level of the Asian Rugby competition,”
• On December 12, 2024 – World Rugby announced the Rugby World Cup 2027 pathway and lists Malaysia and not Sri Lanka on their website:

Screenshot from RWC 2027 Website https://www.rugbyworldcup.com/2027/en/qualifying

• Now a one-off playoff game between Malaysia and Sri Lanka is due to be played in April 2025 (TBC) but there was no announcement from Asia Rugby itself aside from the message from the Asia Rugby President*, which confirmed there will be a playoff game. He (in our opinion) incorrectly stated that its always been the plan to hold a relegation-promotion match and says that has been in place for 8 years (The above timeline suggests otherwise as do about a dozen articles which suggested Malaysia would be relegated and Sri Lanka promoted).

Asia Rugby Emirates Mens Championship 2025 Playoff

On X (formerly Twitter), one account suggested the official reason for the match is “to maintain competitiveness due to the huge gap between the top flight and Division 1”. Sri Lanka is currently ranked #41 by World Rugby, and Malaysia #52.

Malaysia (known as the Bunga Raya) has been in the Asia Rugby Men’s Championship since 2018, has never won a game and is on a 10-game losing streak – they conceded an average of 60 points per game in the losses in 2024 against Korea, Hong Kong China, and the UAE.

When Sri Lanka and Malaysia last played each other, Bunga Raya won 22-9 but that was in 2017.  Fahmy Jalil added, “Sri Lanka’s current side is quite strong and playing against them will definitely be a tough challenge for us. We had about four or five naturalised Fijians when we last played them. The situation has changed now.”

While Hong Kong China, the UAE, and Korea all plan for the 2025 Asia Rugby Emirates Mens Championship with 6-8 months of planning and lining up potential tests beforehand considering the enormous prize at stake, whether it is Malaysia or Sri Lanka that wins the playoff in April – they will be at a huge disadvantage by the time the Championship gets underway.

Asian Men’s XV Rugby 2024-2025

• Fans Guide To Asia Rugby Men’s Championship 2024.
• Number of Asian Rugby Partnerships Signed Across Multiple Markets.
• Men’s Rugby World Cup 2027 Qualification.