*Presentation PRA

Pondicherry Rugby Association has been funded by Thomas Vidotto in December 2009; it aims to promote rugby in Pondicherry and its area. Thomas Vidotto, a former player in the Stade Toulousain junior team, wants to improve the notoriety of his sport, particularly among the schools of Pondicherry. He is already training several teams, like the “Pondy Sharkz”, the senior team of Pondicherry, and aims to give a more professional background to this team.

*Our goal :

We aim to take part into the setting up of a professional championship in South India, in collaboration with SIRFA (South Indian Rugby and Football Association) and IRB (International Rugby Board). This project aims to create 8 professional teams. Each team will be sponsored by a company.
Like this each franchise will have to create:

-One professional team of 30 players, with a professional staff (coaches, physical therapists…)
-Two amateur senior masculine teams and a feminine one, with at least 75 players.
- Eight masculine college teams and four feminine, with at least 300 players.
-Twenty high school masculine and feminine teams, with at least 600 players.
-The needful frameworks to support all these teams.

Finally each company will take part to the creation of around 1000 new rugby players, and to the building of new sportive frameworks.

*The future main actors of the South India professional championship.
There are mainly four different actors, involved in the process of professional rugby championship:

SIRFA: the South India Rugby and Football Association, which aims to make rugby more popular in South India. Its role will to ensure the best communication and work between each organism, and to make sure the championship goes smoothly.

The government: Its role will be to ease the setting up formalities for frameworks, particularly for training fields, but also to promote rugby within the scholar programs.

The mass media: They will have to communicate enough about the championship, in order to attract more spectators, and by this way ensuring to the franchise the best visibility as possible.

The franchises: These sponsor companies aim first to provide enough money to set up the different teams, but also to give to its players knowledge about English, informatics, management, finance…In fact, companies will create new rugby players, but also new people with the higher education than what they get.

The advantages of the creation of a rugby professional championship are numerous. First from the popularization of a new sport will appear new ideas and new behavior for the youths. Then the human values of Rugby can have benefits to everyone. Moreover it will create employments, vocations and also a new image of sport in India. Each of these organisms will get a moral or financial reward (see the category “partnership” for the franchises)