KEY POINTS:
New Zealand is "too small" a market to host the Rugby World Cup and the 2011 tournament "will be our last without a doubt", says former All Black Stu Wilson.
His comments follow the release of a new IRB report which says the 2011 Rugby World Cup should
not have gone to a "small country" with limited "commercial potential" and a "saturated" rugby market.
Putting Rugby First was penned by two legal firms and has been sent to rugby officials around the world.
It argues that rugby is at risk due to its "narrow global footprint" and says an overhaul of the International Rugby Board is needed.
The report points to the 2011 hosting rights being awarded to New Zealand as one of the key failures of the IRB.
"How many more rugby shirts are Adidas likely to be able to sell to New Zealanders? What sort of media audiences can realistically be expected in such a small, isolated market with a challenging time zone?" Asks the report.
It goes on to say that Japan would have been a suitable host with a larger market and could have acted as a "springboard" to the rest of Asia where 60 per cent of the world's population lives.
"Diehard rugby fans around the world, i.e. in the Foundation Unions, will watch at any hour but where will the new audience come from?" The report asks.
But Wilson said while Japan has the bucks, it's New Zealand's passion for rugby which secured the Cup bid.
"The reason why the IRB country fans want to come down here is because it is a hell hole for rugby. They want a taste of what makes us so special with only four million people and a couple of sheep," Wilson said.
He said the New Zealand bid for the 2011 Rugby World Cup blew the IRB out of the water.
"If they think Japan should have got it, well, their presentation must have been crap. We rolled in the Prime Minister, Colin Meads, Tana Umaga. The others rolled in no one," he said
New Zealand has helped grow rugby in Japan since the first World Cup by way of players and coaches but Japan has not yet stood on "their own two feet" Wilson said.
He said it would make for "dreadful" television if Japan was to host the Cup and not able to fill stadiums.
"OK, you're going to get some bucks out of it without a doubt but I think it was our turn to host a rugby world cup and this will be our last without a doubt. We're too small a market and commercially we're not there. We've already budgeted for a net loss and we haven't played one game," He said.
Wilson said Japan is likely to get the next one but because the IRB are asking for guarantees, there is only a limited number of countries who can afford to host the cup.
The report said that 97 per cent of the 33 million people who watched last year's World Cup final between South Africa and England came from the eight so-called foundation countries - England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, France, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.
"There are 115 members of the IRB," the report said, "but rugby is evidently not particularly popular in most of them."
The report makes six recommendations: an overhaul of the IRB's structure, corporate best practice applied to the body, a five-year plan for the sport's development, specific programs with firm targets in growth regions, the 2015 World Cup being staged in one of those regions, and the inclusion of rugby sevens at the 2016 Olympics.
World Cup matches have only been hosted by the eight foundation nations since its inception in 1987 and the IRB has continually failed in its attempts to get sevens - the shorter and faster version of the 15-man game - included at the Olympics.
Following the success of Twenty20 cricket, the report urged the promotion of sevens as a way of bringing the sport to new audiences.
"Rugby is a special sport, with all the ingredients to be one of the most successful in the world," the report said.
-NZHERALD STAFF, AP
