Who should host The 2023 Rugby World Cup

[Leonormous Boozer]

But then how do you go about it in future?

Ireland complained that the recommendation doesn't give them enough time, or that it's release was too late. But then there is the lobbying afterwards that gave other unions more time to rally and snatch up unsecured votes by way of politics, bribes, or family connections...

Evaluate the bids and show where they're strong and weak and what risk lies where but don't recommend anyone. SA would still have the strongest bid but taking away the element of them "winning" the recommendation and pitting the other two as "losers" would result in a process you can't really criticise the evaluation that states your country is capable of hosting the gig.

 

[TRF_heineken]

Evaluate the bids and show where they're strong and weak and what risk lies where but don't recommend anyone. SA would still have the strongest bid but taking away the element of them "winning" the recommendation and pitting the other two as "losers" would result in a process you can't really criticise the evaluation that states your country is capable of hosting the gig.

Okay, so take away the scoring then, which ultimately showed SA and France ahead of Ireland on most topics. Should they instead of a percentage have gone for the weakest/weak/mediocre/strong/strongest idea?

 

[Leonormous Boozer]

Okay, so take away the scoring then, which ultimately showed SA and France ahead of Ireland on most topics. Should they instead of a percentage have gone for the weakest/weak/mediocre/strong/strongest idea?

Potentially although I wouldn't even score it, just write a report on each bid. That'll tell the other unions that Ireland didn't have the infrastructure France and SA did in a way that it would ultimately read to us that we were still capable of hosting the tournament and would almost certainly have stopped that letter being written and published. Not that the letter was bad in this case, the scoring didn't make all that much sense when it had France ahead of the other two financially with their AA credit rating (Fair) and then SA and Ireland level despite a BB credit rating in SA and an A credit rating in Ireland, then the issue of safety where, without entering another debate, three equal scores didn't make sense when SA and France do have safety issues and Ireland really don't regardless of how safe one would be on match day. When considering things like this in such depth and then basing it on a percentage score they'd want it to be watertight and have a rebuttal for any issue one of the unions raises with the report, this time they didn't and I don't think its possible.
The result went against the recommended bid with a lot of unions likely looking at it and thinking we have a small 1st world country (Technically one and 1/20th of a country if you're a rat/have different political views to me!) which could have loads of logistical issues, a large 3rd world country whose political and economic instability could cause problems and a large 1st world country which is a guaranteed success. The report was ignored and we go back to France and the country with a far worse result in the report still managed to get 1/5th of the voting despite not getting the vote from two unions that they've run a league with for 17 years among many other close links. It reads to me as if the recommendation was all but ignored outside of countries with a fondness for sheep so why bother with all the vitriol and bad blood that surrounds it when you could still give a favourite without ******* everyone else off by not actually announcing it? Then from the point of view of a smaller country the recommendation seems more unfair when considering one of SA, Australia, France and England will likely always be bidding, Spain and Germany are starting to make a bit of noise too and then even Argentina and Italy could and all would be better equipped to host a tournament (which is what the bid really looks at rather than finding who'd host the "best" RWC considering that's not quantifiable) than Ireland or New Zealand who are/were just about big enough to host but would never be able to compete with the aforementioned. So while World Rugby may try to make the process clear and transparent it will always be vulnerable to being made look skewed, just tell everyone they're a winner like they're kids because the last fortnight showed they'll all just act like kids anyway!

 

[The Jones Boy]

Did the quota system in south Africa count against them?

I can see how World Rugby may feel that teams being chosen on race is not a policy they would want to appear to embrace with the granting of their crown jewel marquis event.

Security in RSA has got to be an issue as well.