RWC 2023: Philip Browne says bid four years in the making

The IRFU's Chief Executive Philip Browne provided the backstory to the union's bid to host the 2023 Rugby World Cup from the genesis to official tendering, and making a shortlist of three, alongside South Africa and France.

He explained: “It’s taken is four years to get to here. We were in New Zealand in 2011 and experienced the wonderful World Cup staged. We came back and said, ‘if New Zealand can do it’ why can’t we do it.’ We have four key stakeholders, Irish rugby, the governments, north and south, (and the GAA).

“The governments have been absolutely critical to all of this; we can’t stage a tournament of this size and magnitude on the island unless we have the full support of both governments and we are very fortunate to have that.

“That manifests itself in a number of ways, in terms of the public commitments that need to be made in terms of tax, access, visas, protection of commercial rights for the tournament itself, the guarantee to pay the £120 million tournament fee, underwriting the tournament costs, albeit with 2,000,000 tickets to sell that won’t be an issue.”

Browne paid a special tribute to the cooperation and support received from the GAA in offering several stadia to underpin the bid. "The first meeting I actually had in relation to the notion of looking to host this World Cup was with Paraic Duffy and Liam O'Neill of the GAA.

“This would not be possible without the GAA and I have to thank publicly, Paraic and the GAA because they have made the stadia available to us. Without those stadia we simply couldn’t stage it. The (GAA) have been an important stakeholder for us.

“We are very fortunate that we have that level of support. The other thing we have managed to do very successfully is to assemble a world class team of advisors, all of who have had experience of winning bids, all of who have experience of delivering a successful tournaments, World Cups, Olympics, you name it.

“The credibility of our bid is significant. It isn’t something we cooked up in the back office of Lansdowne Road. This is something that has been thought through very carefully by people who know what they are doing.”

He outlined further support and advice from heavy hitters in the corporate world before concluding: “The hard work only starts now. We have 12 months to persuade the rest of the world that this is something worth doing.”

Browne explained that they had engaged an English company, Wilson,Owens and Owens to conduct feasibility study into prospective stadia. “When you match up the big GAA stadia with the rugby stadia, we have an ideal mix of venues. We have a long list of 12 venues. It’s up to the RWC to choose the venues that will be used. Ultimately it will be eight to 10 venues. The key thing for us is it is a sustainable solution, these are all pre-existing stadia with the exception of Casement Park which is already planned to be built and which hopefully will be built.

“One of the key things about the stadia is that they are all city centre locations. You can walk to any stadium. There is no question of getting on a train and spending an hour getting out to a stadium and then two hours to travel back in from a stadium after a match.

“From a fan experience it is going to be absolutely unique and can’t be delivered anywhere else in the world. We have a unique mix of seating and terracing. We can convert the stadia into all-seater if we wish but we don’t wish, we want to retain some standing.

“That does a number of things. It provides tickets at an accessible price to the real rugby fan and that is something that we want to deliver for World Rugby. We are very confident that the stadia are there and it will produce a magnificent experience for the fans.

“The sort of atmosphere that is produced at big GAA grounds and big rugby grounds embodies the spirit of rugby which is camaraderie and friendship and those are the sort are the sort of values that we want our World Cup to portray. “