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We should have known that the International Rugby Board had a trick up its sleeve when its president, Bernard Lapasset, announced that the World Cups of 2015 and 2019 would be signed off next year together, and that a non-major rugby nation should be considered as host for one of these tournaments.
Now Greg Growden in The Sydney Morning Herald has exposed the trick with his story that highlights the decision to charge the host RWC nations a whooping $207m in 2015 and $248m in 2019 for their hosting rights.
These two decisions by the IRB suggest to me that England will host the 2015 RWC and Japan will host the 2019.
To my mind, this arrangement makes sense.
The 2011 RWC tournament in New Zealand is unlikely to make the mega-dollars of a tournament held in a larger country.
A RWC tournament in England will be a huge money-spinner for the IRB, to compensate for the New Zealand tournament. And by 2019, the initiatives of the IRB to spread the game throughout Asia will be having an effect.
The game is being grown in China and India.
A RWC tournament held in Japan, where rugby has a good niche market, becomes an obvious strategic and financially-rewarding move.
Greg Growden makes the point that the upfront levy imposed on a country that hosts the RWC tournament will ensure that “only a few rich rugby nations, such as England and France could bid for World Cups from 2015.”
Along with England and France, these rich nations are ‘possibly’ Australia and Japan. I’d add South Africa to this list, as well.
The 1995 RWC tournament was brilliantly run and made a huge profit. South Africa is hosting the Football World Cup in 2010. The nation will have football-rugby stadiums for future World Cup tournaments.
When you put this list down – England, France, Australia, South Africa and Japan – you come to the conclusion that these are the countries you’d want to be running RWC tournaments, for the next 20 years or so anyway.
Put in this light, the IRB’s move can be seen as a positive provided the money raised is used effectively and properly to spread rugby throughout the world.
To be fair, the allocation of the treasure gained from the RWC tournament in France in 2007 (which those of us there would love to repeat) has been excellent.
Money is being pumped into South America, especially Argentina now that a new administration has embraced a professional game there.
In Africa, there are many initiatives on the boil.
We’ve seen the start of a successful Pacific Cup tournament embracing Japan, the Pacific rugby nations, NZ Maori and Australia A.
The IRB Sevens tournament is going from strength to strength, and next year’s Sevens World Cup has trophies for both male and female teams.
Then there is the new annual Junior World Cup tournament, which was run successfully in Wales earlier this year. Next year the tournament will be held in Japan (hint, hint).
Greg Growden also noted that Australia was the only country that opposed the hosting levy requirement, and that Scotland, Ireland and Wales were strongly for it on the grounds that they can “clearly see a financial windfall coming their way involving the minimum of effort.”
These three countries, ‘The Celtic Chums’, were strongly opposed to a Rugby World Cup tournament when Sir Nicholas Shehadie, representing the ARU and some NZRU officials, tried to get support for the concept in 1985.
The Celtic Chums’ officials would not even have a meeting with the Shehadie delegation.
Except for one Welsh delegate who defied his Union, all the Celtic Chums delegates voted against the RWC tournament concept at the IRB meeting that approved it.
Now they can’t keep their sticky fingers out of the cookie jar.
What hypocrisy!