England And Wales Mull Joint Bid For Rwc 2015

The rugby union bodies from England and Wales are considering staging a joint bid to host the Rugby World Cup in 2015.

The International Rugby Board (IRB) begins the tender process for the 2015 and 2019 tournaments this month by inviting ‘expressions of interest’ and Rugby Football Union chief executive Francis Baron and Welsh Rugby Union chairman David Pickering have held informal talks about the possibility of a joint bid.
 
The IRB will announce in July 2009 who will host the two events, with Japan also set to bid for the 2015 World Cup.

Japan controversially missed out to New Zealand for the right to host the 2011 tournament, with South Africa – the other country to miss out then – another possible 2015 bidder.

Baron and Pickering discussed the prospect of a joint England-Wales bid at the IRB’s summit in Hong Kong last week.

The RFU is understood to be setting up a special group to discuss the proposals and Wales have been encouraged by their success in hosting last month’s Junior World Championship.

The next step would be for the plans to go before the boards of the respective unions for approval, before a formal application to host the World Cup is submitted.

Previous bidding process have been beset by politics with it not being uncommon for several countries to stage matches in exchange for votes despite a single host being announced.

The IRB views England as a ‘banker’ host for 2015 in terms of revenue generation with the 2011 tournament in New Zealand likely to accrue significantly less than last year’s World Cup in France.

The 2007 World Cup was the most successful in the tournament’s 20-year history, with 2.25m fans attending the matches, up to 4.2bn watching worldwide on television, and an economic impact of £3.18bn in France, according to IRB figures.