England Touch Association enjoys record-breaking 2024 and sets sights for bright future

The England Touch Association (ETA) has released its Annual Report for 2024, reporting successes across all areas of the organisation.

On the field England achieved its best-ever return from a Touch World Cup, winning 10 medals from the 13 categories the nation entered, with a further five Gold medals and one Silver brought home from the six categories at the Junior European Touch Championships in Vichy.

The Association successfully hosted the largest ever Touch World Cup, welcoming 187 teams from 39 nations to Nottingham for a memorable 10 days in July 2024.

2024 was also the ETA’s biggest domestic year with the Men’s, Women’s and Mixed National Touch Series spanning five months for the first time, and the largest combined number of teams entering The Nationals.

Partnerships were announced with Australia’s Priority 10 and England’s Try Sports to provide teachers with top class resources to develop Touch Rugby in schools, and then a national competition framework in which to play.

For another year, the ETA experienced a 10 percent increase in the number of individual members, with the 14-24-year-old demographic representing ~50 percent of the overall membership.

The financial impact of the Touch World Cup resulted in a closing balance more than double that reported in 2023, providing the ETA with a more secure foundation upon which to grow in targeted areas.

Internationally Touch is also growing, and in the wake of the Touch World Cup the Federation of International Touch and Touch Football Australia announced their intention to pursue Touch Rugby to be included in the Olympic programme at Brisbane 2032.

“The Touch World Cup dominated the year, but it was well worth it,” says ETA Chair, Tim Loveridge. “Delivering the largest World Cup ever and receiving such positive feedback from the Federation of International Touch, National Touch Organisations, players, referees, support staff, volunteers and spectators, has reinforced England Touch’s position as a Tier 1 Nation and an organisation that can deliver large scale events.

“From a High Performance perspective, our England teams delivered far more than we imagined possible, winning five times the number of medals we won at World Cup 2019. A truly remarkable achievement.

“While TWC 2024 dominated the year, England Touch has continued to make great strides forward in delivering in our areas of key focus: Growing the Game, Developing the Sport and Evolving the ETA.

“To that end we hosted 1,200 school children at TWC 2024 to broaden the reach to schools across the country, and our University programme continues to go from strength-to-strength.

“We had another very successful year with our national events, attracting wider participation and increasing opportunities for playing. We have sought to broaden our local leagues programme primarily in partnership with In2Touch and other affiliated operators.

“Following on from the Covid years we have needed to stabilise our financial position. TWC 2024 was a financial success for us and has allowed us to accelerate the building of our reserves to ensure we have a strong financial base.

“A massive thank you to everyone across our workforce – paid and voluntary – and to all of the people who contribute towards the growth of the sport.

“In particular, on behalf of the Board I would like to thank Chris Simon for his immense contribution and leadership over the five years leading up to and during Touch World Cup 2024. Chris was our CEO during the challenging Covid years, but we emerged stronger and more resilient, and while he will be a significant loss to England Touch it is great that we will have him in a very influential position as the Federation of International Touch’s Chief Operating Officer.

“We have been very fortunate to appoint Vince Mayne as our new CEO as of December 2024. Vince joined us with a wealth of experience across a variety of sporting organisations and I am sure he will lead us forward and build off the strong foundations that we have established.”

CLICK HERE to download the England Touch 2024 Annual Report