Italy to mount World Cup bid
July 20 2008
Italy have confirmed that they are going to bid either for the 2015 or 2019 Rugby World Cup on Sunday, in a move which Italian Federation President Giancarlo Dondi called a 'cornerstone in the development of Italian rugby'.
The venues for the 2015 and 2019 events will be announced in July 2009.
The IRB have hinted that one of the tournaments will be taken out of the established senior rugby-playing countries, with Japan thought to be the prime choice, but Italy's intention makes it an interesting decision, as the European nations is likely to be able to offer a strong economic proposal.
England and Wales are thought to be bidding for 2015, with Japan also in contention, and Australia have signified their intent to bid for the 2019 tournament.
"It's a new cornerstone in the development of Italian rugby which the whole movement should be proud of," said FIR president Giancarlo Dondi.
"At the moment we are waiting to have the documentation from the IRB with which to make our bid official," added Dondi in a statement.
"Successively we will be able to get to work on presenting the best project possible to the IRB in order to bring to Italy the world's third most important sporting event after the football World Cup and the Olympics."
The IRB began the tender process for the 2015 and 2019 tournaments this month by inviting "expressions of interest".
The process of choice will be under close scrutiny after the decision to hand 2011 to New Zealand was made amid a blaze of accusations of political meddling and vote-stealing.
Both 2015 and 2019 tournaments are under financial pressure as well. The 2011 event is likely to generate considerably less revenue than the 2007 tournament in France, and so 2015 will need to cover the shortfall.
For this reason, it is expected that 2015 will go to England, with Japan the probable destination for 2019. However, Italy's economic strength and geographical proximity to the home unions and France does make it a possible venue for 2015.