Set up to fail’: Cards still stacked against smaller nations at Rugby World Cup.

Barring spirited performances from the likes of Portugal or Uruguay, the 2023 Rugby World Cup currently underway in France has once again exposed the chasm between the sport’s haves and have-nots, highlighting the need for a concerted effort to help emerging nations raise their game, particularly in Africa.
Set up to fail’: Cards still stacked against smaller nations at Rugby World Cup
Barring spirited performances from the likes of Portugal or Uruguay, the 2023 Rugby World Cup currently underway in France has once again exposed the chasm between the sport’s haves and have-nots, highlighting the need for a concerted effort to help emerging nations raise their game, particularly in Africa.

Lemoine highlights the huge divide between the sport’s traditional heavyweights and the smaller, lagging nations – a gap he describes as a disconnect between “the clowns on one side and on one side are the big landowners”.

The head coach of Los Condores (The Condors) said: “Everyone is passionate about fighting and everyone is happy to see Chile compete in their first World Cup, but behind the scenes nothing has changed. change”.

His comments won the support of Agustin Pichot, former deputy director of World Rugby, the sport’s governing body.

In a post on social networks an exclusive selection of “boy” sports is presented. ‘club’.

The comments were widely understood as an attack on rugby’s governing body, which he left in 2020 after failing in his bid to secure the top job and enact radical reform. to. Unbalanced competition
Chilean Lemoine said his team’s historic World Cup qualification was largely thanks to the creation of a South American professional rugby league, with the support of World Rugby.

“We are here because we received funding for this year,” he said. “But for it to be effective, it has to last four, eight or twelve years. »

He mentioned fellow South American team Uruguay for whom he played and whose performance against hosts France in the group stage clash on September 14 was widely praised.

“Now everyone talks about Uruguay, but we (Uruguay) participated in the 1999 World Cup. More than 20 years have passed and nothing has changed,” he said. “Romania, Namibia, Samoa, Tonga… They were all there [in 1999]. Have they improved since then? On the contrary, they have decreased.

Uruguay, who will play their final World Cup match against New Zealand on Thursday, will exit the tournament with just one win over Namibia – a less prestigious place on their record than the Fijian side they beat. previously lost four years ago at the World Cup. In Japan. .

As for Namibia, a country that has come a long time behind this tournament, they have yet to win a match at the World Cup after 7 appearances. After the 0-96 defeat to France, some experts even questioned whether such lopsided tournaments should be held at the World Cup.

It is important to remember that Namibia has two million people and only 6,000 licensed rugby players (compared to France’s 315,000),” former French captain Thierry Dusautoir emphasized in an article on L’Equipe. They still have to do it.”

The fixture schedule also punished the Namibians, with retired US international Will Hooley writing in The Guardian, saying the poorest team was “set to fail”. He pointed out that Namibia’s four group stage matches were played in just 17 days, compared to France’s 28 days – a difficult schedule for a team not used to facing the likes of France and New Zealand. Their relative inexperience reflects another glaring inequality:
From the last World Cup to this tournament, Namibia only played a dozen international matches, compared to 41 matches for France. Their highest opponent is Uruguay, ranked 17th in the world, which means Namibia’s players have had very little training before the World Cup.

A bigger tournament?
Namibia’s rare international encounters include a rare loss to Ivory Coast in July 2021. For retired player Bakary Meïté, who was a member of that Ivory Coast team, the The sport’s growth on the continent will require long-term investment. “If rugby wants to become truly global, more money needs to be allocated to smaller teams,” he said. “Sports is already present in many African countries, but we must create conditions for it to develop.”

Meïté, currently an expert on FRANCE 24’s “Planète Rugby” program, emphasized the need to create a competitive tournament in Africa in which national teams can compete regularly . Such a tournament must provide better conditions for players, he added, recalling trips abroad when Ivory Coast players had to play up to three matches a week to reduce costs. .

Scrutiny of the competitiveness of small teams is expected to intensify in coming years with plans to expand the next World Cup to 24 teams from the current 20.
At a press conference in Paris last week, World Rugby chief executive Alan Gilpin called for efforts to expand the pool of teams competing for a World Cup spot without confirming rumors of an expanded format of the tournament. “We want more teams to be able to qualify for future Rugby World Cups and we want more teams to be able to compete in the Cup,” he told reporters in Paris. World Rugby and ultimately more teams capable of winning the Rugby World Cup.”

That will require substantial and lasting support for the sport’s emerging nations – and potentially taking on the “big landowners”. Indeed, rugby’s traditional heavyweights from Europe and the southern hemisphere are already at work on a new annual competition involving only a dozen teams, which would leave little space for rugby’s hopefuls.