Rugby's missed opportunity to go global

The truth behind what appeared to most observers to be an extraordinary decision by the International Rugby Board to award the 2011 Rugby World Cup to New Zealand was revealed yesterday.

Japan, a highly placed IRB official told me, simply threw away their chance of making history by hosting the event. It emerged that the Japanese bid at the presentations hugely impressed everyone. Yet it had all come too late.

As the IRB insider said: "Japan started their campaign far, far too late. Had they put that video together 18 months ago and gone round the world with it showing every voting nation, they would have walked it."

As it was, several delegates turned up to vote in Dublin having already been mandated by their unions. They were immensely impressed with the Japanese presentation but the decision had already been made.

The Japanese were slow off the mark in the inevitable politicking. They were left behind by New Zealand whose officials flew around the world on an extraordinary schedule, visiting 12 countries in 19 days and making presentations to each one. They pressed the flesh and talked turkey. The hard work of men such as Jock Hobbs and Chris Moller had its reward.

But what also counted massively in New Zealand's favour was that Prime Minister Helen Clark flew to Dublin to take part in the Kiwis presentation. She was the only member of a Government to support in person any of the three bidding nations.

Welsh representative David Pickering admitted: "The New Zealand Government showed whole-hearted support for their bid, and that was a major factor. For their Prime Minister to fly right across the world just for a three-hour meeting was a tremendous testimony for the backing given to the New Zealand bid by their Government and the whole country."

Senior IRB delegates were keen to emphasise that the decision had been taken with factors other than money involved.

As one said: "If money were the only criterion, the Rugby World Cup would only take place in two or three places every time. We are sure it will be a tremendous financial success in New Zealand."

The only consolation for the Japanese was that if they put together a more professional bid and do it far earlier next time, it is highly likely they could win the vote to stage the tournament in 2015.

New Zealand had come from nowhere, from rank outsiders priced by some bookmakers at 20-1, to snatch the huge financial prize. But we have to ask ourselves, at what price for the game?

The consequences may prove to be considerable. Rugby can now forget about winning a place in the 2012 London Olympics and, even worse, other lesser rugby unions of the world may be dissuaded from launching their own bid.

For undeniably this was a vote for the past, for the tried and trusted. The message it will have sent around the world was that rugby is still a game based around an elite club, happy to keep it that way and stay within its comfort zones.

We should probably not be that astonished. When the IRB delegates filtered into the hotel room in Dublin to hear the decision, you saw a collection of men mostly approaching or past 60 years of age. They voted for what they knew best. The vivid imagination required to support Japan's bid, a vote for a bright new global future for the game, was beyond the compass of this group.

Yesterday's vote in Dublin told us above all else that the IRB needs to make fundamental changes to its voting system. To leave the decision on the destination of future World Cups in the hands of a group of men from individual countries who will vote firstly for what is best for them, not the game, is a major weakness of the IRB's internal structures.

Countries will never put the game's best wishes in front of their own needs. Thus, all kinds of deals may have been put together before yesterday's vote. We don't know what was promised or even who voted for whom.

Japan are by no means sure they will bid again for another World Cup. They feel that, when push came to shove, the so-called Old Boys Club voted for one of its own. They left Ireland disillusioned.

If ever the game had a golden opportunity to embrace the future, to herald the advent of a bright new dawn in the sport, it was this week in Dublin. Sadly, it turned its back on tomorrow and retreated into the past where it felt most comfortable.

New Zealand won't host a lousy World Cup. They'll be great hosts and warm, welcoming people as they always are. It's just that this was a perfect moment for rugby to open its eyes and its mind to a whole new future market, to show vision and imagination. To see it come to that doorstep of opportunity but then meekly turn tail and retreat to where it had come from was somehow symbolic and a sad, disillusioning sight for anyone keen to see the game truly become a global sport.

* Peter Bills, in Dublin, is a rugby writer for Independent News & Media in London