Pressure group issue World Cup warning
Tournament organisers are expecting to make a NZ$30million (€13.7m) loss on the event and the authors of hard-hitting report ‘Putting Rugby First’ fear the knock-on effects could be serious.
The report, originally published in July, criticised the IRB for failing to maximise rugby’s commercial potential and insisted a developing nation must be awarded the World Cup.
The IRB dismissed the report as “deeply flawed” — but co-author Quentin Smith has written back to chairman Bernard Lapasset and questioned the governing body’s position on the World Cup.
The IRB will announce the hosts of both the 2015 and 2019 World Cups in July next year in the hope it will increase the chances of a non-traditional country being awarded the tournament.
Nine nations have registered their interest but only Italy, Japan and Russia are non-established rugby nations.
Smith has called on the IRB to provide “clear leadership” to ensure the tournament does indeed go to a developing nation. But there are concerns that the same voting system which saw the 2011 tournament awarded to New Zealand over Japan is still in place.
The original ‘Putting Rugby First’ report stated the IRB must award the 2015 tournament to a developing nation if they are serious about breaking out of an English “ghetto” and establishing the sport as a truly global game.
The report accused the IRB of being “unrepresentative and undemocratic” and of lagging behind sports like cricket in expanding into new lucrative markets.
They came up with six key proposals, which included reforming the IRB’s structure and improving its corporate governance.
In September, the IRB answered many of the criticisms levelled at them in the report and defended their performance.
Smith has written back to Lapasset, addressing what he described as a series of “glaring misrepresentations”.
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