WORLD RUGBY CEO Brett Gosper has defended the 2023 Rugby World Cup bidding review process as “robust and fair” following criticism from Ireland and France.
Last month, the Rugby World Cup Limited (RWCL) board unanimously recommended South Africa to host the tournament, with RWCL chairman Bill Beaumont saying the nation was the “clear leader”, and a final decision will be made via a World Rugby Council members’ vote later this month.
However, the review has drawn heavy criticism with Ireland’s World Cup bid chairman Dick Spring stating there was a “skewed basis” scoring system, while France Rugby Federation president Bernard Laporte labelled the report “laughable”.
In a strongly-worded letter, details of which were released on Wednesday, IRFU chief Philip Browne raised a number of queries about how the respective bids had been judged.
But Gosper defended the process, telling Sky Sports: “We don’t look at it in terms of small or big.
“We look at it in terms of who is presenting a magnificent facility infrastructure and everything that goes around making a World Cup a success.
“There’s a vote to come and we’ll see what happens with that. But certainly this is now the third biggest global sporting event on the planet and it does require scale and it does require facilitates that are world-class.
“And in this particular contest you’ve got two countries that very recently have hosted some world-class events beyond Rugby World Cup [Euro 2016 and Fifa World Cup 2010], and have demonstrated and been experienced in deploying their talents around events such as this.
“It’s disappointing that there have been some comments made that we don’t believe are accurate and reflect the accuracy of our report.
“We have official channels which they are using to ask us on every element of our report – why they scored it a certain way, were there errors, were there issues – and we’re in the process of answering those questions.
“But we’re very confident that our process actually is robust and stands up to any scrutiny.”
On Laporte’s comments, he added: “We were not surprised by the reaction, the disappointment, the emotion.
“Yes, I think some of the language was a bit excessive and we’d refute all of those allegations as being the most professional selection process not just for Rugby World Cup but probably for every tournament in the world.
“The transparency of it, the thoroughness of it, the professionalism of it, the use of third-party experts, the use of third-party people overseeing that the process was extremely fair is unprecedented, so no.
“Bernard Laporte has his point of view and we understand the disappointment, as indeed Ireland have demonstrated theirs as well.”
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Sour grapes from Cheika. The knee on Conway was by far the worst incident in the game. Australians are always terrible losers though.
@Jim Demps: so are we to be fair
@domas1507: disagree! By international standards (us, English, Australia) we’re not too bad. Honest about how shite we are when we are if anything
@Jim Demps: Entirely agree… have seen this kind of cynical ‘tackle attempt’ a few times now and it’s clearly not intended to stop the score, but to injure the scorer.
These need to be picked up and sin-binned.
@domas1507: you definitely get off on self flagellation.
@Bruce Van der Gutschmitzer: wrong comment, wrong place.
@domas1507: I never get this. Everyone last week said Australia deserved to win, that they had our number and out played us. We also had justified complaints about some shoddy refereeing, but it wasn’t sour grapes, it’s just another element of the game you can dissect.
@Conor Paddington: some would say complaining about refereeing decisions after you loose, justified or not, is being a bad looser
@Conor Paddington: that’s nonsense, you can rationally dissect a game and be honest whether your team win or lose, and refereeing is a part of that. The ref was bad last week and that is not why Ireland lost amd Australia deserved to win. That is not sour grapes.
@Conor Paddington: I’m not talking about last weeks game exactly. It’s easy be a gracious in defeat when you clearly loose. The sign of a gracious loser is is accepting defeat when you think you should have won. Think ireland v new Zealand in Dublin and a certain French striker for examples of what I mean.
@Jim Demps: the knee? He was legitimately trying to stop a try , he was hardly just going to let him stroll in
@domas1507: @domas1507: well a blatant double handball and determined ignorance of fifa officials is fair enough to critique. Neglecting to give yellows for a knock out shoulder charge and a clothesline would wind you up too. In that case, I’m a sour c¿nt!
@Trevor Reilly: I think he was def trying to injure him… barely laid a hand on him but still dropped the knee into him. Sorry, but for me it was deliberate.
@Bruce Van der Gutschmitzer: don’t be harsh on yourself, you’re just a bad looser
@Jim Demps:
Every country have their whingers and complainers. Australians are no different to ourselves, England, Wales etc.
@domas1507: like true troll resentment feeds me!
@Trevor Reilly: There is nowhere on the field that you are allowed to tackle with the knee. If he was legitimately trying to stop a score why not try to get under the ball with his arms/body?
I like Australia. But they play some highly questionable rugby when it comes to legality. Cheika can do one if he’s going to complain about off-the-ball incidents considering there were a raft of Australian incidents both last and this week.
Cheika can F right off… his players were hitting Irish players off he ball and / or late all evening and getting away with it most of the time!!
Make no mistake. They know that deep down theyll never be able to force Ireland into infringement issues.
I see us getting it done in Sydney. #TeamOfUs
Again some awful referee decision even with TV match officials and touch judges. Hard to understand that they cannot get it right?
I know some will think it’s pedantic but can we stop with this ‘first win in Australia in 39 years’ business it’s not. It’s Ireland’s first away win against Australia. I saw Ireland win in Adelaide 15 years ago.
@Ted Od: first away win against Australia sorry in 39 years.
@Ted Od: it’s pedantic!
That ref was the Pitts … who let him on a pitch…. he was very 2 sided….well take the win .
@Sean Beirne: Two sided? Maybe one side too many? Or not…
Bloody whinging Aussies ( said in an Alf Stewart voice )
It was a shocking challenge
…definitely should be cited