Let’s play imagine today
Just imagine if the Sri Lanka Rugby Football Union has 4.5 billion rupees in total net assets in the bank. Or imagine if we had an elite training academy looking after a number of medal sports at the Olympics, that it was given 5.2 billion rupees as an annual subvention from the government.
This is the sort of money which the Hong Kong Rugby Football Union and the Hong Kong Sports Institute has to play around with. The former’s cash pile built up over the years through profits from the Hong Kong Sevens while the latter body which is in charge of 16 sports, including rugby sevens, was handed this sum by the government to streamline the path towards medal success for close to 600 athletes at major Games.
In 1976, the first Hong Kong Sevens turned a modest profit of just HK$6,000 for the HKRFU. Today that figure is in the regions of millions of dollars.
Let’s just talk about rugby although the money pumped in to the other sports is already beginning to show dividends with Hong Kong winning its first-ever gold medal at the Asian Athletics Championships last month when its 4×100 men’s relay team bagged the top prize in Pune, India.
Money, it seems, can buy you success and the Hong Kong Rugby Football Union has plenty of it. In 1976, the first Hong Kong Sevens turned a modest profit of just HK$6,000 for the HKRFU. Today that figure is in the regions of millions of dollars resulting in a stockpile of HK$273 million prudently saved, or in rupee terms 4.5 billion.
Careful management and canny investment (the finances of the HKRFU after all has mainly been run by Scots who are reputed to be shrewd investors) has resulted in this large savings. Yet, it is thanks to the Hong Kong Sevens which has an annual turnover of tens of millions of dollars that the HKRFU now holds the tag as one of the richest unions in world rugby.
But with the foresight of the people who created the Hong Kong Sevens, the HKRFU just don’t sit on this pile of money like an incubating hen, instead they are investing it back in the community with the major goal being acquiring more facilities for an increasing rugby population.
Land, as everyone knows, is a scarce commodity in Hong Kong. Finding grounds is an ongoing problem with sports having to depend on the government for much-needed facilities. Thanks to its riches, the HKRFU doesn’t have to wholly depend on the government and has chartered its own course.
Yes, they still have to get land on government lease, but once they have got it, they have been able to pay for building the facilities 
from artificial pitches to clubhouses. Other sports have to fully rely on the government to do everything, but the latter is loath to commit totally leaving the rest behind.
So the Hong Kong Sevens benefits the fast-expanding local community. At last month’s AGM, the HKRFU allocated more than HK$100 million (1.7 billion rupees) from its net assets to its facilities fund.
It already has a Home for Rugby at King’s Park – the Sri Lankan team led by Yoshitha Rajapakse trained their two years ago on their way to the Philippines for the Asian Five Nations Division One competition – something which even the SLRFU cannot boast of despite the acres of real estate available in this country.
With an eye on expanding its ambit, the HKRFU has now begun a scheme whereby they are assisting schools, both international and local (Chinese) to upkeep their sports facilities for which in return they get to use it for rugby. They achieve twin targets in one shot for not only do they get much-needed grounds, but also they can help push the sport in the local schools.
It would be easy for the HKRFU to sit on its laurels and just miserly squirrel aside the profits for a rainy day. But they are not doing that, instead they are always trying to push the envelope and looking at ways to broaden a limited player-base.
Sri Lanka does not have to worry in that sense. Rugby has always been a popular sport and it is not something alien to our community. Not so in Hong Kong where only in recent years steps have been taken to broaden its appeal from the expatriate community. Today there is a groundswell of optimism in Colombo rugby circles. The national team is in the elite group alongside Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and the Philippines in next season’s Asian Five Nations. The new administration is putting into place the building blocks and with support from the government is attempting to take the sport from Point Pedro in the north to Dondra in the south.
The first steps are being taken. And remember that the success of the Hong Kong Sevens didn’t come overnight, but painstakingly over the years. What mattered, and helped, was that Hong Kong rugby had a solid base of volunteers (they still continue to be the bedrock) who gave their time and commitment to the cause.
We need people like that in Sri Lanka who will generously dedicate their efforts to the game without indulging in petty partisan politics. We need people who can see the bigger picture, not just the trees but the forest. They must not be in the game for just the prestige, forgetting it all when their term in office is over.
This has been the real strength of Hong Kong rugby – the people behind-the-scenes who give their time and unstinted support without the recognition. And there are hundreds of them, from mini-rugby coaches, who on a Sunday turn out to take charge of a bunch of hyper-kids, to referees who turn up voluntarily.
Before the slick management companies which run the show came into existence, the Hong Kong Sevens was run by volunteers all helping create the dream. These are the little Lego blocks that have helped build a skyscraper which is Hong Kong rugby today – a powerful and body flush with money.
Money can help pave the way, but at the end of the day, true success stems from a solid foundation of like-minded people who are all pushing towards the same goal.
Just imagine if we had that.
Follow @timesonlinelk
comments powered by Disqus