Legendary Wallabies hooker Phil Kearns has revealed the bidders who challenged Australia to host the 2027 Rugby World Cup and initial plans to get New Zealand involved.
Kearns is a Director on the Board of the Local Operating Company, which helped win the bid for the World Cup and will assist in delivering the 2027 tournament in Australia.
The 57-year-old initially planned to run for the Rugby Australia CEO position for a second time before being convinced by Hamish McLennan to lead the World Cup campaign.
Contenders for the 2027 World Cup
Appearing on The Good, The Bad, The Rugby AUNZ podcast, Kearns revealed who rivalled Australia for the hosting rights of the tournament and that there were plans touted to take a few of the pool matches to New Zealand.
The former Wallaby confirmed that the USA, who will host the 2031 showpiece, were in contention for the World Cup in 2027, but shockingly so were Russia.
Russia have been banned from all international rugby events since their invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but they had launched a bid to host the 2027 World Cup.
More recently, Middle Eastern countries Saudi Arabia, Qatar and UAE confirmed their interest in hosting the 2035 World Cup, but according to Kearns, it is also not their first attempt.
“The US were a rival at one point,” he said.
“There were a few others that had thrown that into the ring like Qatar and, believe it or not Russia, but the US were a contender for a while.”
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The USA have been confirmed as the host after Australia in 2027, with Kearns explaining that the standard of USA Rugby was not good enough to host the tournament before 2031.
“Two things the USA team weren’t up to scratch and you want a strong US team so there’s a lot of investment going there but the second point was we have a country here [Australia] that is brilliant at hosting global sporting events,” he continued.
“From cricket to the Olympic Games and Rugby World Cups, we’ve got the grounds in different states all around the country to do it – we’ve shown that expertise.”
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Why New Zealand rejected hosting a pool
In 1987, Australia and New Zealand jointly hosted the first-ever Rugby World Cup and the same was supposed to happen in 2003, only for Australia to solely host the tournament after disagreements over sponsorship, advertising and ticketing.
With Australia set to host the tournament yet again, Kearns confirmed that the suggestion of matches going to New Zealand were raised, but NZ Rugby were quickly put off by the price tag that Australia set.
“There was actually talk of New Zealand having a pool, but when we did our modelling, it would mean we’d lose about $250 million of revenue if we took a pool to New Zealand,” he explained.
“New Zealand, so I said to Mark Robinson [NZ Rugby CEO], ‘Mate, you can have a pool, but you need to pay $250 million’.”
He explained that New Zealand Rugby did not really consider the offer because they don’t have the same stadium capacity and couldn’t charge the same ticket prices.
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Src: Planetrugby.com - https://www.planetrugby.com/news/wallabies-legend-reveals-shock-bidders-for-2027-rugby-world-cup
