Bill Beaumont anticipates special and game-changing Rugby World Cup

World Rugby Chairman Bill Beaumont believes that Japan 2019 will be "a very special and game-changing Rugby World Cup" as the one year to go milestone was marked with a series of celebrations across the host nation.

On 20 September, 2019, the world’s top 20 teams, supported by 1.8 million fans in-stadia and a global audience of hundreds of millions, will begin their quest to lift the most coveted trophy in rugby, the Webb Ellis Cup.

Since being awarded the hosting rights in 2009, the Japan Rugby 2019 organising committee in full partnership with World Rugby, the Japan Rugby Football Union and national and local government, has been focused on delivering a unique, once-in-a-lifetime tournament, Asia’s first Rugby World Cup.

And as the tournament reaches the year to go countdown, Beaumont, a member of the World Rugby Council that selected Japan as host nine years ago, is confident that the organisers are making good in their bid promises. 

"World Rugby selected Japan as we believed in the tremendous opportunity to further the sport across Asia, and I am delighted to say that with a year to go, we are confident that Japan 2019 will be a very special, successful and game-changing Rugby World Cup. 

"It will be the most impactful Rugby World Cup ever, attracting and retaining more than one million new rugby players in Asia, while changing the lives of tens of thousands of disadvantaged children in communities across Asia thanks to the generosity of fans supporting our transformational partnership with ChildFund Pass It Back.

"Japan 2019 will also benefit the whole of the nation from Sapporo in the north to Kumamoto in the south, delivering rugby and sports facilities for communities to enjoy, while pumping ¥216.6 billion added value into the economy.

"In keeping with a tournament that has rugby at heart, the team camp and match venue facilities are looking superb and everyone will receive an incredible welcome from engaged host cities and prefectures."


And with more than 400,000 visitors set to travel to Japan for the six-week tournament, STH Japan, the official travel and hospitality provider, has revised-up its official supporter tour and hospitality programme estimates owing to exceptional domestic and global demand. 

Converting the opportunity of the first Rugby World Cup hosted in Asia has been a major priority for World Rugby, Asia Rugby and the Japan Rugby Football Union and at the one year to go celebration event in Tokyo today, Beaumont announced that the Asia 1 Million project, a key pillar of the Impact Beyond 2019 legacy programme, is 90 per cent of the way to achieving its target of one million new players in Asia with 899,000 participants to date, while more than 1,900 schools across Japan have implemented tag rugby.

Story via: World Rugby