England must host the 2015 Rugby World Cup

 
Spiro Zavos Columnist

By , 7 May 2009 Spiro Zavos is a Roar Expert

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England's Phil Vickery, center, tries to muscle his way through the Italian defence during the Six Nations rugby union international match at Twickenham stadium in London, Saturday Feb. 7, 2009. AP Photo/PA, David Davies

England's Phil Vickery, center, tries to muscle his way through the Italian defence during the Six Nations rugby union international match at Twickenham stadium in London, Saturday Feb. 7, 2009. AP Photo/PA, David Davies

England must host the 2015 Rugby World Cup. There I’ve said it, and I don’t have my fingers crossed, nor am I trying to be sarcastic.

The fact is, for every reason, financial, access to great stadiums, spectator comfort and interest, the need for a geographically compact tournament and in the spirit of rewarding countries that have kept the faith in rugby, England should be awarded the hosting rights to the 2015 Rugby World Cup.

With Australia pulling out for 2015 and 2019, and probably for decades to come, only Italy, South Africa and Japan are left in the race.

It is doubtful whether Italy has the rugby infrastructure to run a World Cup tournament. Anyway, with France hosting the 2007 World Cup, another tournament on the European continent is just not on.

South Africa hosted a most successful World Cup in 1995.

But with New Zealand hosting the tournament in 2011, it is the turn of a northern hemisphere rugby nation in 2015. South Africa’s next best chance is 2019, when it is the southern hemisphere’s turn or the turn of a nation like Japan, which is not aligned to either the northern or southern hemisphere powers.

South Africa, too, will want to demonstrate with the 2010 Football World Cup, the biggest sports event in the world, that it can handle something of the size (admittedly smaller than the Football World Cup) of the Rugby World Cup tournament.

This brings us to Japan.

Eddie Jones and John Kirwan, both big figures in world rugby who coach in Japan, have pushed the claims of Japan. Kirwan, a former All Black, dismayed New Zealanders by disputing New Zealand’s claim to the 2011 World Cup tournament.

The Japanese authorities, too, secretly hired a PR firm (Dentsu, one of the biggest in the world) to employ a British legal firm to white ant the IRB’s decision to grant New Zealand the tournament.

The legal firm challenged the IRB’s decision, a challenge that was rejected. Information detrimental to the IRB was leaked to the media, a tactic that was not appreciated among the power brokers of world rugby.

Dentsu is behind the Japanese bids, and was behind Japan hosting the Football World Cup.

As with the promotion of the Football World Cup, the promotion of a Rugby World Cup held in Japan would be part of a marketing push by Japan Inc. to push the major Japanese major trading companies.

The language used to promote Japan’s bid is all about how Asia needs a World Cup to push the game forward.

The fact is that, while Asia remains to be embraced or to embrace the rugby game, the best growth prospects for world rugby are in the Americas, the former communist countries like Georgia, Russia and Roumania, and Africa, where Kenya, for instance, has developed a formidable Sevens Rugby team.

Eddie Jones, anyway, suggests that Japan is more interested in 2019 than 2015 to host a Rugby World Cup.

This leaves us with England.

England’s bid ticks all the boxes. They are going to use the great venues of Twickenham, Wembley, Old Tafford (Manchester United’s home ground, where rugby Tests have already been played) and the Millennium Stadium (hopefully something will have been done about solving the problem of the perennially slippery pitch by then).

These magnificent stadiums will be packed and they will provide the IRB and the RFU with a largesse of income that will enable the reserves to be built up and huge sums of money to be spent developing and promoting rugby around the world.

There is also the consideration that England will be user-friendly for the thousands of spectators from around the world who will come to England to watch the event.

The geographical compactness of England will enable a World Cup feeling to permeate the country for the seven weeks of its duration. Journalists, for instance, and spectators who can afford to, will be able to go to many more matches than, say, they were able to in France.

I know that in 1991, England produced a very poor World Cup tournament. There was an arrogance with the officials running the tournament, and a certain incompetence that mitigated against the success of the tournament.

The fact that matches were played in Ireland, as well as England and Wales, also tended to diminish from the sense of a World Cup in England.

The RFU will have the example of England running the Olympic Games in 2012 in London. The expertise gathered from that exercise will be invaluable for the RFU three years later in hosting the Rugby World Cup.

One of the major figures involved in England’s Olympic Games preparation is Sir Clive Woodward. I nominate him as the CEO of the England’s Rugby World Cup committee.

Two other points should be made.

First, the imperative in presenting a World Cup tournament as a spectacle that enthralls viewers around the world might, just might, encourage the RFU to be more amenable to needed reforms in the laws of the game and in its administration.

Second, rugby received a huge boost from the successful World Cup in 2007 in France. Eight years on, with a successful World Cup in England rugby could and should top that boost and entrench itself as a very viable alternative to football.

This would be virtually inevitable if, in the spirit of making rugby as accessible to world audiences as possible, England would lead the way to creating one rugby season around the world, a reform that would create the chances of many more northern and southern hemisphere contests.

So for many reasons, England must host the 2015 Rugby World Cup.

There, I’ve said it again.

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