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New Zealand Rugby President Brent Impey said his organization is “dissatisfied” with World Rugby for various reasons and believes the time is right for a new president at Agustin Pichot.
Frustrated President Brent Impey says New Zealand Rugby backed Agustin Pichot to replace Bill Beaumont at World Rugby because the organization requires a major overhaul.
While it is not surprising that NZ Rugby has chosen to vote for former Argentine midfielder Pichot rather than English Beaumont as World Rugby president, the passion of Impey’s message after Thursday’s annual NZ Rugby meeting made it clear that he was fed up with the current regime.
When asked if it would be a missed opportunity if Pichot didn’t win the election, Impey believed the game was undermining if those in government couldn’t make the change.
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“If you look back for many years, World Rugby has been very frustrating from a New Zealand perspective,” said Impey.
“And I think the straw that broke the glass was the Nations Championship, which we were strongly in favor of.”
Last year, World Rugby was unable to advance plans to create a world season and introduce the Nations Championship tournament, because influential countries in the north wanted to protect their positions in the Six Nations.
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NZ Rugby has endorsed Agustin Pichot to lead World Rugby
Those unions were not open to a promotion-releasing format, which effectively eliminated any hope NZ Rugby had of entering the All Blacks in the tournament that would come much closer to a world season and provide much-needed additional income.
Impey said it was clear when it was first raised in Dublin that the Celtic nations and Italy were against the Nations Championship.
It marked a number of other areas of concern. World Rugby has been delayed on issues such as allowing players who had represented world-class countries, such as former All Black Charles Piutau, to return to international rugby with second-tier teams after a reasonable period of inactivity.
Impey said NZ Rugby wanted to help teams like Japan and Fiji have more exposure, but were denied this opportunity when World Rugby failed to launch the championship.
“That was the last straw that said” this organization needs major reform, “” said Impey. “I see that both candidates (Pichot and Beaumont) have a platform for government reform and that is also behind schedule.”
AP
Bill Beaumont will likely garner the backing of the major European nations as he seeks reelection as President of World Rugby.
Impey believed that NZ Rugby had made a concerted effort in the past “six or seven years” to represent the community at large by appointing women, Maori and Pasifika to perform government functions.
It is his belief that World Rugby, the organization in charge of executing the game, has been too slow to react: “World Rugby simply does not represent something like that.”
It will not be known whether Pichot will have the numbers to defeat Beaumont until May 12, and even if he wins the race, there is no guarantee that he can compel established northern unions to yield ground on important issues.
A familiar refrain in rugby circles since the Covid-19 pandemic forced all competitions to stop has been that this is an opportunity for the sport to restart and NZ Rugby, which Impey says faces a loss of “tens of million “in 2020 After declaring a loss of $ 7.4 million for 2019, he wants a change.
ROBERT KITCHIN / MATERIAL
Players from the Northern United Rugby club in Porirua are helping the community during the national closure of Covid-19.
NZ Rugby may be forced to sacrifice around $ 70 percent of revenue if rugby is not played this year, but it has cash reserves of $ 93 million.
Impey is firm NZ Rugby will survive this financial crisis. But he believes a change in World Rugby is required.
“We are dissatisfied with the lack of progress in recent years, on a variety of issues,” emphasized Impey.
“While we have great respect for Bill Beaumont as an individual, this has become a problem in which there has been a lot of self-protection by existing players (northern unions) against those of us, particularly the Sanzaar nations, who want to see The game grows.
“That’s why I supported him (Pichot).”
