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Ireland is to bid to host the Rugby World Cup in 2023, as revealed in a memo from Minister for Sport Leo Varadkar.
The campaign will be launched this afternoon, and the proposal would see games being played in rugby and GAA stadiums North and South of the border. It would follow the planned 2015 Rugby World Cup in England and Japan 2019.
According to a report from Deloitte exploring the potential results of a successful bid, an Irish Rugby World Cup would be worth approximately €800 million, and could bring an estimated 337,000 fans to the country.
Mary Regan, deputy political editor of the Irish Examiner, joined Breakfast this morning to talk about the bid. You can listen to the podcast via the player below:
Regan explained, "The key decision makers on this are in Dublin for an international conference today... so Leo Varadkar will be addressing them later this afternoon. He's going to argue along the lines of we're the same size as New Zealand, and they held a very successful World Cup in 2011, [proving] it could be done here".
She added, "Varadkar is understood to believe this is the only international sporting event we could realistically vie for. He said our rugby infrastructure is good. We have the tourism, hotels, transport facilities in place. But something like a soccer World Cup would be too big an event for Ireland".
John Greene of the Sunday Independent talked to Pat about the proposals:
Ticket sales would be likely to subsidise a large amount of the event's running costs, and there would be major boosts to the tourism sector generally. However, concerns are likely to be raised that taxpayers could have to foot a notable portion of the bill, as was the case in New Zealand. Using GAA stadiums for other sports has proven a controversial concept in the past, while discussions are also likely to focus on whether we have the necessary stadium capacity to host an international multi-venue tournament.
Do you think we're ready to host a Rugby World Cup? Would there be too much work and resources required to successfully hold such a tournament? Would its many benefits outweigh its drawbacks? Vote in our poll and leave your comments below?
