Aussie boss: IRB claim All Blacks replaceable 'nonsensical'

John O'Neill. Photo / Getty Images

Australian Rugby Union CEO John O'Neill described as "nonsensical" the claim by International Rugby Board chief executive Mike Miller that New Zealand could be replaced at the next World Cup.

O'Neill said concern over the financial model under which the World Cup operates had unified the southern hemisphere rugby conglomerate SANZAR. But he expressed concern the debate over the Cup's future is being turned into a conflict between northern and southern hemisphere and that the real issues are not being addressed.

Australia is supporting New Zealand in its threat to boycott the 2015 World Cup unless concerns over the tournament's commercial procedures are addressed.

"Threatening to boycott a World Cup is not our style, but equally the notion that any team is replaceable is nonsensical," O'Neill told a news conference on Friday. "A World Cup without the All Blacks, the Wallabies or Springboks, I'm not sure you would be calling it a World Cup."

O'Neill said New Zealand and Australia's concerns were not being raised frivolously but represented very real worries about their financial future. Both Australia and New Zealand claim to lose money in Rugby World Cup years because of a reduction in the number of tests and restrictions on the activities of their sponsors.

O'Neill said the portrayal of the issue as a breach between rugby's northern and southern hemisphere unions was misleading.

"That has brought us (SANZAR) together in a very unified way," he said. "It's not frivolous, it's a very serious matter.

"Let's get away from the hurly burly of the tournament and sit down and resolve those issues together and not get caught in a divide-and-conquer, north-versus-south debate which I think is the objective of some people."

The IRB has argued that revenues distributed from the World Cup more than compensated the losses experienced by major unions. But O'Neill says that isn't the case and the financial basis of the four-yearly world tournament has to be re-examined.

"I saw Mike Miller said the SANZAR countries haven't taken into account the money we give them during the four years between World Cups. Well that $16 million (that Australia expects to lose in a World Cup year) is net of what we get from the IRB," O'Neill said. "It's a very easily calculated and supported figure. And the SANZAR countries together, it's $38 million."

O'Neill was asked whether Australia would follow New Zealand in boycotting the next World Cup.

"There's a great saying I picked up from a South African and that was, `We'll double-cross that bridge when we get to it,"' he said.

-AP