2 July 2009
Johannesburg — THE South African Rugby Union (Saru) will express its dissatisfaction in writing to the International Rugby Board (IRB) in the next few days over the procedures followed by Rugby World Cup Limited (RWCL) in forming its recommendations for the 2015 and 2019 Rugby World Cup host nations, writes Zeena Isaacs.
RWCL -- which owns all rights associated with the tournament -- recommended on Tuesday that England should host the 2015 event and Japan the 2019 showpiece, in line with its aims to generate revenue and to break into new markets.
The news left SA's bid committee stunned and confused.
But Saru have not given up hope of being awarded one of the tournaments and is banking on the fact that the IRB council has the final word.
"We are not happy with the recommendation report, so we are drafting a response to the IRB," said Saru deputy president Mark Alexander, who led SA's bid. "Our technical team met (yesterday) and discussed our concerns, which will be lodged.
"We entered into a tender process and we ticked off all the boxes in terms of the criteria we had to meet.
"And in some cases we even exceeded the requirements."
This is the second time SA's bid appears to have failed -- despite the formal presentation receiving a positive response from IRB members.
The country was equally confident of being awarded the 2011 showpiece, but it failed to make the final voting round, which New Zealand and Japan battled out. With the IRB determined to grow the game worldwide, Japan is virtually guaranteed to be awarded one of the two events.
The IRB council will meet in Dublin on July 28 to vote on the matter after which the host nations will be named.
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