France take a landslide victory

Rugby 2007 World Cup: Ultimately, England's boys took a hell of a beating in their bidding contest with France for the rights to stage the 2007 World Cup. Gerry Thornley reports.

Despite Twickenham's audacious two-tiered bid and promises of unprecedented largesse, France's more orthodox formula, previous deals which were cast in stone, some compromise and divvying up of the venues, and a sense that it was simply their turn, led to the Council delegates of the International Rugby Board voting by a whopping 18-3 in favour of taking the 2007 World Cup to France.

Nobody had expected such a margin, and there had been speculation that South Africa, perhaps Wales, and some of the smaller nations - even Italy who were miffed at not being offered any pool games by their rugby neighbours - would side with England. In the event, only long-standing allies Canada were believed to have backed Twickenham's bid when the Council voted in Dublin yesterday.

Despite presenting themselves not only as visionaries but also as paragons of the developing nations, with between £90million and £111million to share around the global game, ultimately not even FIRA, who represent fairly impoverished rugby nations such as Romania, Russia and Georgia, lobbed their one combined vote in the RFU's direction.

France cannot claim that this was their ideal scenario, for they had to compromise on their original go-it-alone bid in order to allow Wales, Scotland and Ireland to host some of the tournament. In deference to the International Board, there is a tacit acceptance that the previous tournaments held in Europe, nominally hosted by England (1991) and Wales (1995), were too thinly spread and thus too disconnected, and accordingly 37 of the 47 matches, as well as the third place play-off, in the 2007 tournament will be held in the 'host' country.

The IRFU, no less than the Scots or the Welsh, will be grateful for some slice of the cake in the absence of the traditional autumnal internationals in 2007, now that the tournament will be held in the September/October window as opposed to summer.

However, Ireland will host only three pool games, one of which will be between two rival pool countries, so thus will be obliged to play two of their four pool games in France. Ditto Scotland and Wales, with the latter also granted one of the quarter-finals - a pay-off for France's previous trade-off to give the Welsh an entire pool. The French will at least have three quarter-finals as well as both semi-finals and the final, though one wonders if the French have cut any deals for 2015 - presuming that is Europe's next turn.

The IRB and French argument, as put forward yesterday, was that the size of the stadia and parochial interest in the Celtic countries will ensure bigger crowds and more widespread interest. It has some validity, but you can't help feeling that it would simply be a better tournament if it was held entirely in France, a greater coming together of cultures and supporters as well as teams. That's what World Cups should ideally be about.

In lauding "fine bids from two of the most powerful and influential rugby nations in the world" the IRB's acting chairman, Dr Syd Millar, referred to England's proposal to divide the tournament in two, reducing the main event to a 16-team competition with a Super Eight finale, while a subsidiary tournament was run off for the smaller nations.

"But Council was overwhelmingly of the view that the structure should remain as it is, namely a tournament comprising 20 teams playing in four pools of five," said Millar. The RFU chief executive Francis Barron admitted that once that decision had been made, the writing was on the wall for their bid.

"Widespread soundings amongst the developing nations had in fact indicated a strong preference to maintain the current format," added Millar. "The dream of one day performing on a world stage alongside the giants of rugby sustains the aspirations of many of our most promising nations and their players."

The French Rugby Federation president, Bernard Lapasset, paid tribute to the English bid and maintained it was "not a victory over England, more a victory for a project," explaining: "the difference in the projects was more in the philosophies. Our objective was to actually combine the two per cent of rugby which is professional with the 98 per cent which is amateur, to allow the other 90 unions to play in the World Cup without any superficial artifice." Asked whether the carve-up with the Celts ran the risk of diluting the notion of a World Cup in France, Lapasset implied their hands were tied. "We had to respect an agreement with Wales that they would have games and also to respect our friends in Ireland and Scotland. The other reason was that we had to open the market," he said.

Both Barron and the RFU chairman Graeme Cattermole refuted any suggestion that this was payback for previous misdeeds, such as their go-it-alone television deal with Sky which nearly led to their expulsion from the Six Nations, maintaining that their bid had more vision and that both the IRB and the global game had better wake up to the increasingly harsh financial climate.

Therein lay their one apparent trace of bitterness over the decision, namely, according to Catermole, "the reduction to our figures which the IRB put forward." As had been rumoured therefore, the IB Council delegates had questioned the projected profits put forward by the RFU.

England's bid had a certain amount of audacity to it, but in the final analysis England's bid was perhaps a case of wrong time more than wrong place. France had been in two finals yet had never previously been allowed host a semi-final. It was time to take it to a non-English speaking country for the first time, and it was their time.