Regional Franchises Announced

England Touch has announced a new format for developing Touch in England: the launch of an annual 2 day National Touch Tournament and the formation of 7 new regional franchises as part of it's player development pathway leading to National Squad selection.

The tournament will show case the best players from each region and will be used as a basis for selection for the Opens and 30's sides for Euro's 2012. This tournament will increase players exposure across England to coaching, improve coaches skills and lift the standard of England Touch across the board.

Regional coaches and assistant coaches have been hand selected by the High Performance Team (see here). There will be announcements of trial dates for the regions out in the near future, so please keep an eye on the England Touch website. The tournament is pencilled in for 21^st & 22^nd of April 2012 at Lilleshall National Sport centre. This is not open to any club sides, only sanctioned regional franchises are allowed to participate. This does not affect the 2012 NTS series in any way and the NTS series will continue as normal next year.

Regions are roughly grouped as follows: South East, West, South West, Midland, North East and North West. The exact borderlines will be published shortly.

In order for a player to be eligible for a region, they will need to have participated in an affiliated league in the region in the last 12 months (starting from 1^st April 2011) or be registered (and regularly play) with an affiliated club. In addition to this, you must not play in any unaffiliated competitions and/or leagues. Any exception need to be authorised by the High Performance Team.

If anyone has any general queries at this time please email Marnie(Marnie@englandtouch.org.uk) also if anyone know of any potential sponsors for the event please email Jack Linstead (jack@englandtouch.org.uk).

Keep up to date with all the Franchise info here.