World Cup rugby meeting

Press, 4 September 1982, Page 60

World Cup rugby meeting

NZPA staff correspondent London The promoters of the plan to stage rugby’s first World Cup competition in 1985 will meet the New Zealand Rugbj Union Council to discuss the concept on September 24 in Wellington. The chairman of Sports Sponsorship International, Mr Neil Durden-Smith, said yesterday that the date of the meeting had been confirmed by the New Zealand union’s secretary. Mr Barry Usmar. New Zealand will be the

first stop of an excursion to the major rugby-playing nations of the Southern Hemisphere by Mr DurdenSmith. From Wellington, he will flv to Sydney for discussions with the Australian Rugby Union and then, if dates can be arranged, on to South Africa. S.S.I. is trying to get the $13.8 million World Cup plan debated at the next meeting of rugby’s governing body, the International Rugby Board, which is to be held in London next March.

There has been adverse reaction from English and Welsh rugby officials who say a World Cup would overburden already heavily-com-mitted players. But France has been particularly enthusiastic about the concept while the New Zealand union has declined to commit itself either way until it has studied S.S.l.’s proposals in detail. However. Mr DurdenSmith. who was aide-de-camp to the late Lord Cobham when he was Governorof New Zealand,

said he had been encouraged by the willingness of the New Zealand and Australian unions to discuss the concept. To get the project off the ground, S.S.I. will need a three-quarters majority of the eight member nations of the 1.R.8. Its concept envisages a 12nation contest — the eight 1.R.8. nations and four emerging nations — with a three-week play-off in Britain, culminating in a grand final at London's 100,000-seat Wembley Stadium