2015 and 2019: Where?

May 14 2009

"The 2015 Rugby World Cup must come to England, any other decision would be narrow, bitter, costly and ludicrous."

So read The Times shortly before the World Cup bids were due to be submitted to the IRB on Wednesday. It's a statement that smacks of all sort of national fervour and is a bit of a slap in the face for Japan and Italy. Why?

Italy, Japan, South Africa and England all submitted their cases to the IRB for review. We will know on July 28 where 2015 and 2019 will go.

The Rugby World Cup occupies a lot of odd niches in world sport. Rugby is the only tournament, for example, where the World Cup is an extra to the sport's calendar, where nothing stops for it.

Leagues are shifted around it and finding the right windows at the end of the seasons in the two hemispheres is challenging, but not one tournament in world rugby actually does not take place because of it.

More significantly, the proceeds from rugby's global showpiece are the lifeblood for the game's governing body, whose funding allocation manager Mark Egan does an excellent job pumping it to all the developing organs around the world that struggle to compete with either other sports or bigger economies.

Thus we are beginning to get things like Fiji in a World Cup quarter-final, Argentina a step away from a Final despite having no other meaningful tournament to play in and a thriving set of sub-tournaments around the world such as the Asian Five Nations and European Nations Cup.

No other sport generates its development money quite so exclusively from one tournament as rugby does.

So the IRB has set its stall out to belligerently and unashamedly squeeze the Rugby World Cup for every penny possible. It has to for the sake of the game.

A host nation has to pay a huge lump sum of money up front to get World Cup hosting rights. It's a sum set by a co-operation of a myriad of financial scientists who analyse all the economic factors; it's the IRB's way of making sure the host nation does its job properly - the host nation must pay the money before the tournament, then do the job right to recoup that money during the tournament.

The IRB is guaranteed its income that way - the game is guaranteed its development that way.

So here's the problem:

1) The IRB did not raise its price for the 2011 Rugby World Cup. All New Zealand has had to pay is what France paid for 2007 - some $100m - which means a decrease in money going to the IRB in real terms. There's a shortfall.

2) In between, the economic downturn has taken a big bite. The IRB had to revise its prices for 2015 and 2019 downwards 20 per cent just to keep bidders interested - meaning RWC 2015 is not going to cost a lot more than RWC 2007 did. Money is going to be scarce in rugby's international development for a while.

3) That bite is likely to hit RWC 2011 as well, with New Zealand's tournament already likely to come up short in terms of profit, meaning the IRB needs a bumper 2015 just to make ends meet.

So, the argument is used that 2015 must, simply must, come to England because England would be the only country capable of producing a global showpiece which would not only satisfy rugby's soul but also fill the coffers with doubloons and pieces of eight, right?

Wrong.

We'd probably have to dispense with South Africa. Taking a tournament that needs to make well over its budget to a developing country is possibly not the wisest move at this juncture. Plus which, honestly, hasn't South Africa hosted enough sport over the past few years?

But dispensing with Japan and Italy and justifying it on an economic basis is plain foolish. Is it beyond them to host a successful tournament just because they are not a founder union? Absolutely not. Would they bring the necessary soul and character to the tournament? Goodness, yes.

Taking rugby somewhere new might give the sport a little kick in places the IRB don't expect and open channels of income the IRB might not know about.

It's not as if audiences in the UK, France, Australasia and South Afica are going to switch off if the Cup is not in their own countries. It is as if audiences in countries like Japan and Italy might continue to struggle to get to see their rugby fix should the rugby governors ignore their virtues once again. It is as if the broadcasters there might think twice about spending all the cash on RWC packages for a tournament far, far away and ring-fenced by a small number of countries.

If the IRB needs to get more money in, surely it could start by opening new markets up properly rather than merely milking the same old ones dry? Japan is one of the richest countries in the world (admittedly also one hit hardest by the recession) and crucially, has no real status in any 'global' sport - no competitor when it comes to the locals trying to establish a reputation, no other regular guest in the Japanese home.

The Japanese love nothing better than opening doors to a sporting culture as all those lucky enough to have gone there for the soccer in 2002 would have discovered. There's no shortage of infrastructure, no shortage of facilities and no shortage of fanbase - club games there are attracting thousands of people and there's no shortage of good players heading there right now either.

It's not only Japan to be involved - rumours abound that some of the fixtures will be farmed out to Hong Kong and Singapore (critics please examine the farming out of fixtures by England to Wales). Imagine the financial clout for the IRB that might come about as a result of combination of those two with Japan!

Italy also deserves a shout. As anyone who has been to the Stadio Flaminio will testify, the Italians are embracing rugby like never before, even while their team continues to sup post-match beer from the wooden spoon.

Italian companies are using rugby players for corporate images because, in the words of one Chief Exec: "Rugby is a game that extols the virtues of honesty, hard work and health with which we would like to be associated and with which other companies like to associate with us for."

They have the stadia - anyone who points out that Italy is full of soccer stadia only needs to have a closer look at England's planned stadium list for the tournament - they have the players and fan base, they have the sort of national enthusiasm which the French had, which imprinted itself upon the tournament so well and which gave it a real sense of a host identity - something that was sadly lacking in the 1991 and 1999 editions. It was the aspect that made France 2007 so successful.

Italy may well have a team by then that could make it to the knockout rounds and bring the nation to its feet. Imagine the Azzurri fervour then!

The IRB will announce the hosts of both 2015 and 2019 on July 28. One of those venues will be a new territory, one will not. The venue that is not will be under pressure to recoup any financial losses incurred by the new territory. It's a sensible strategy - it covers the IRB for a little adventure.

But let's have that adventure sooner rather than later. Let's take rugby to new turf and see how it plays in 2015. Let's open up rugby's doors this time. It would make a reversion to a traditional venue in 2019 much less dull.

By Richard Anderson