Gregor Paul: Qatar and Saudi Arabia make charge for Rugby World Cup hosting rights

Faf de Klerk, of South Africa, gets the ball away as All Blacks loosie Ardie Savea chases during the 2023 Rugby World Cup final. Photo / SmartFrame

Rugby got its answer this week about where, when and how Middle East money is going to make its way into the sport.

The answer is the 2035 World Cup, which has to be a sitter to be played in either Saudi Arabia or Qatar, or possibly even both as well as the United Arab Emirates.

Spain has been touted as a frontrunner – an emerging rugby nation that can tap into the established infrastructure of its world-renowned football league La Liga.

Japan is believed to be making a bid and has proven itself to be a strong commercial market for the game.

Italy is also believed to be in the hunt – another major European economy that has an established football league with all the necessary stadiums.

But there are also reports Saudi Arabia, Qatar and UAE are preparing a joint bid – and it’s almost impossible to see a scenario where this one doesn’t win.

Rugby won’t be able to resist a bid from these Middle Eastern nations. The money they inevitably offer will be astronomical and because of that any and all problems associated with the bid will be overlooked.

Saudi Arabia (2034) and Qatar (2022) have respectively secured and successfully hosted men’s football World Cups and that gives rugby bosses an immediate justification to play a World Cup there – well, they’ll say, if it was good enough for football…

But there will be other issues, such as none of those nations have any rugby pedigree at all, nor, presumably, any desire to change that.

So can the tournament go ahead without a team or teams from the host nations? Well, if there is enough money on the table it can.

And then there is the problem around the climate and player safety. The men’s football World Cup in Qatar was shifted from its June-July window to November-December so the heat was bearable – and that was even with the games being played in air-conditioned stadiums.

Lionel Messi celebrates winning the football World Cup with his Argentina teammates in Qatar in 2022. Photo / AFP

Can rugby, a sport that has tried and failed for 30 years to create a global season, adjust, and play the 2035 tournament in November-December?

Of course they can when there is a pot of gold waiting for them.

And what about the fan experience and the likelihood of filling stadiums? It’s not a sport that has any local support and Saudi Arabia has already said that, like the Qatar event, there will not be any alcohol available in the stadiums when it hosts the men’s football World Cup in 2034.

But there are two other critical reasons why a Rugby World Cup in the Middle East in 2035 is a near certainty.

The first is that rugby has clearly been looking for ways to win investment from one of the major Sovereign Wealth funds from that region.

There have been reports that the Saudis were looking at creating some kind of professional league – of buying all the world’s best players and moving them around the planet every few weeks to play games.

But more realistically, and almost certain to happen, is that the soon-to-launch Nations Cup will play its finals round in Qatar in 2028.

The plan is to play the first finals – next year – in London, then shift to Qatar in 2028. That’s after Qatar made a bid to host the first four finals – a bid that many of the nations involved wanted to accept, until Ireland and France objected on the grounds it wasn’t right for fans and wasn’t right for rugby.

France and Ireland - seen in action during the Six Nations - objected to plans for Qatar to host the finals round of next year's Nations Cup. Photo / Photosport

The fact that the finals are now slated for 2028 suggests Ireland and France are not as wedded to their mortal stance as it may have once seemed.

The other key reason rugby will want to say yes to a Middle East World Cup is the opportunity to break the current hosting model that seems to place significant financial risks on the hosts.

The French Rugby Union this week announced that it lost close to $60 million hosting the 2023 tournament – partly because it paid World Rugby a record $300m hosting fee, and partly because it appeared to lack strong financial oversight of its own expenditure.

Whatever the reasons for the loss, the danger of the hosts finishing the tournament out of pocket are real and maybe it would be good for the global game if Saudi Arabia, Qatar and UAE bankrolled the 2035 tournament with the clear expectation that it’s a loss leader – designed to showcase the three nations and potentially lead to further, profitable investments in rugby.

This way no aspiring rugby nation has to risk a major financial blowout and World Rugby can be certain it will bank an enormous fee from which it can fund a host of initiatives.

Gregor Paul is one of New Zealand’s most respected rugby writers and columnists. He has won multiple awards for journalism and written several books about sport.