Eurosport - Mon, 20 Jul 09:07:00 2009
Japan is close to securing enough votes to secure the right to host the rugby World Cup in 2015 or 2019, the country's bid committee chairman believes.
England look likely to stage the 2015 tournament with Japan favourites for 2019 after organisers recommended the countries to the International Rugby Board (IRB) last month.
South Africa and Italy have also tendered bids but Rugby World Cup Limited (RWCL) named England, who bid only for the 2015 tournament, and Japan as its preferred hosts for the next two World Cups.
"We're close to the 14 votes we need," Japan's bid chairman Nobby Mashimo said. "We have 10 votes we can pretty much count on."
The Dublin-based IRB will announce the hosts for the 2015 and 2019 tournaments after a meeting on July 28.
A report conducted by Deloitte calculated the World Cup could generate over 2 billion pounds in economic benefits for the host nation.
Japan were narrowly beaten by New Zealand in the voting for the 2011 tournament and were expected to be front-runners to host the 2015 edition.
However, Japanese officials have expressed satisfaction at RWCL's recommendation to bring the World Cup to Asia for the first time in 2019.
Comment 1 - 2 of 2
people continually laud the virtues of japan, declarin it the biggest market for rugby in asia, but to me, it would be throwin a huge sum of money and a world class event down a bottomless pit. the japanese are never gonna be up to tri-nation standard, and they are to far away to be involved in the six nations, so their rugby will never develop.
italy on the other hand ARE capable of mixin it with the big boys, theyve beaten the scottish and welsh, and came within minutes of beatin the english. now the ELVs are gone, and the maul restored, the italians main weapon, they will now continue to develop. the quality of parisse (best no. 8 in the world) the bergamasco brothers and their forwards (perugini etc) when combined with better back players, would be a formidable team.
the problem facin them tho, is player pool size. a world cup wud do wonders for interest in the sport and more likely than not increase the number of rugbyb players at their disposal.
from the bank managers point of view, the italian bid has 4 x 80,000 spectator stadia at its disposal and an infrastructure to handle that.
with their inclusion in the magners, italy is the place to go
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