Rugby mess good news for Canada
Chaos over eligibility issues could significantly thin out stronger competition
If ever there was a story that World Rugby didn’t want to talk about, rest assured it’s the ongoing saga that is the European Rugby World Cup qualification mess.
After first bubbling up last week when heavily favoured Spain fell in a shocking loss to Belgium, the story has only become messier.
A terrible playing performance from Spain — combined with some bizarre officiating by the Romanian ref — got us rolling. The loss meant that Romania was off to Japan 2019 as the final European qualifier. Spain, whose team entered the Belgium game in the driver’s seat after an earlier surprise win over Romania, were now on course to face Canada for the world cup’s final qualification spot.
That game will be played in a global tournament in November.
It was a rather shocking last-second turn of events but it all played to Canada’s benefit.
But now it’s a week later and things are ever murkier. Solid reporting earlier this week by Americas Rugby News’ Bryan Ray revealed that Romania had used a Tongan-born player who was ineligible during their qualification campaign.
The player appeared in a lone World Rugby Sevens Series event in Australia in 2013 for his native country.
That now means Romania is quite possibly set to be disqualified — a week ago Tahiti was disqualified for using two ineligible players — meaning Spain would be promoted to the spot won by Romania at the last minute, and third-placed Russia would enter the frame for the final spot (they’d still have to play Portugal first, but why confuse you even more?).
But there’s now confusion about Spain’s selection of French-born players who played for France U20 in the past, at a time when the junior squad was France’s second squad and thus handed power to “capture” players for that nation’s national squad for eternity.
Now, this being international sport, there are exceptions and in the Spanish/French case, there would appear to be a question of nuance: did management of the France U20 team inform these players that selection meant they’d not be allowed to play for another country again?
If the players didn’t know, it seems there’s a possible exemption and Spain will clear this bizarre hurdle.
But if the player is declared ineligible, Spain could be disqualified as well. If both Romania and Spain get punted then Russia, who finished third in European qualifying, would be off to the World Cup and suddenly lowly Belgium would be in the final tournament, making Canada’s chances of advancement even better.
All logical, right?
It’s really baffling to see a major international organization run through the kind of nonsense that’s not named FIFA.
Clearly, much of the problem is complicated and ever-evolving rules around eligibility. Four years ago, World Rugby declared that countries could no longer use their U20 team as their second capture team. They also said that teams had to inform players of the U20 squad’s status and that if they didn’t, players had a case to appeal their captured status.
And it all goes down to how the European qualification series has been administered. World Rugby isn’t the oversight authority there; Rugby Europe is. (And yes, as has been noted before, he’s Romanian.)
It seems clear that Rugby Europe hasn’t just been putting its foot down on confirming team rosters. The rules may be complicated but World Rugby did roll out an expectation that would be enforced.
Supposedly clarity will emerge Thursday, when a Rugby Europe special committee meets to rule on all this insanity.
The Spanish team have said it would like the match against Belgium replayed. That seems unlikely for the mad precedence it would set.
Most observers believe that Romania is bound for disqualification, as harsh and unfortunate as that may seem. And as for Spain’s selection question, that looks totally up in the air.
Time to take a drink.