Rugby World Cup 2023 Host Selection Process Builds Momentum as Candidates are Confirmed

World Rugby has confirmed France, Ireland and South Africa as Rugby World Cup 2023 host candidates.

Each union demonstrated within its application that it could meet key criteria critical to a viable Rugby World Cup hosting bid by the 1 September deadline.

Italy formally withdrew from the process last week after the union confirmed it could not guarantee government support with its bid being linked to Rome 2024.

The applicant phase evaluation focused on key criteria such as finance, venues, tournament window and government support in line with World Rugby's seven hosting objectives:

-Venues and infrastructure commensurate with a top-tier major event

-Comprehensive and enforceable public and private sector guarantees

-A commercially successful event with a fully funded, robust financial model

-Operational excellence through an integrated and experienced delivery team

-A vision that engages and inspires domestic and international audiences and contributes to the growth of rugby at all levels

-An enabling environment of political and financial stability that respects the diversity of Rugby World Cup's global stakeholders

-An environment and climate suited to top-level sport in a geography that allows maximum fan mobility

Each application was reviewed in detail by a specialist technical review group and independently assessed to ensure a fair and consistent approach to the evaluation process.

World Rugby Chairman Bill Beaumont added: "We are delighted by the strong level of serious interest from unions and governments, which is clearly reflected in three strong and impressive applications.

"I would like to congratulate the unions for successfully progressing to candidate status and we welcome further dialogue with all parties as momentum builds towards the selection of the Rugby World Cup 2023 host."

The application phase was the second stage of a detailed three-phase host selection process following an initial education phase, designed to provide prospective bid unions and governments with all the information required to determine to proceed with a bid.

The candidate process officially opens on 1 November and the Rugby World Cup 2023 host union will be selected by the World Rugby Council in November 2017.

Editors' notes:

The Rugby World Cup 2023 host selection process follows a complete redesign of the bidding process to promote good governance and transparency, while providing prospective hosts unions and governments with an opportunity to gather all the information necessary to ensure hosting capability prior to moving through the process. This re-modelling has been assisted by The Sports Consultancy, which helped develop the documentation, tools and will support World Rugby throughout the process, including the evaluation and assessment phase. The appointment follows an initial project by The Sports Consultancy last year reviewing decision-making processes and evaluation criteria.

World Cup 2015, hosted in England and Cardiff, was the eighth edition of rugby's showcase event and the biggest Rugby World Cup to date, reaching, engaging and inspiring fans in record numbers in stadia, in fan--zones, via broadcast and in conversation.

The best attended: 2,474,584 million fans in attendance in--stadia across the 48 matches (98 per cent capacity), surpassing 2.2 million at France 2007 (95 per cent capacity), while a further 1,055,000 fans visited the 15 fan-zones and a further million took part in Festival of Rugby activities.

The most viewed: 16,000 hours of action watched by 183 million fans, broadcast to 683 million homes in 209 territories worldwide with an estimated audience of 120 million watching the final, surpassing all 2011 metrics with Asia and Europe leading the viewership growth and significant increases in emerging rugby markets such as Brazil, China and Germany.

The most socially engaged: Rugby World Cup 2015 was the most spoken about event of the year and the most spoken about rugby event ever, with engagement on the opening weekend greater than the whole of RWC 2011. A total engaged audience of more than 300 million joined the conversation and shared content within a reach of 1.5 billion, while 400 million video views were achieved during a tournament where #RWC2015 was used twice a second.

The most competitive: The average winning margin down from 25 points in 2011 to 22 points in 2015, while the average winning margin between the world's top--ranked teams and the emerging rugby nations reduced from 36 points to 30, demonstrating the advances in competitiveness of the global game. Ball-in-play time was equal best at 44 per cent while the number of scrums were the lowest at an average of 13.

The most commercially successful: Rugby World Cup 2015 was the most commercially successful event to date with reported commercial and broadcast deals increased by 40 per cent, worldwide partners locked down in record time and a global portfolio of official sponsors and suppliers. World Rugby's anticipated surplus of £150 million surpasses the previous record of £122 million achieved at RWC 2007, underscoring the federation's mission to invest record sums in growing the global rugby family.

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