Beaumont heads into second term with rugby ‘at a crossroads’

Confronting and managing an unprecedented financial crisis. Uniting the northern and southern hemispheres in one global calendar. Maintaining the growth of the women’s and sevens games.

All while not even knowing exactly when rugby can return following the coronavirus outbreak.

Bill Beaumont has quite the job on his hands after getting re-elected as chairman of World Rugby — the most powerful position in the sport.

“It’s ‘roll your sleeves up’ time,” Beaumont said Sunday as he laid out his hopes, plans and concerns heading into his second fouryear term in charge of the global governing body after beating Agustin Pichot in the election.

Beaumont, a popular, avuncular figure who was England captain in the 1980s, discussed a range of subjects and challenges facing rugby in the short and medium term. He freely acknowledged, however, that rugby remains at the mercy of the coronavirus. enough.”

“There is no magic money tree,” Beaumont said. “If we haven’t had been very fortunate to run a very successful Rugby World Cup in Japan, then we would be facing a far bleaker outlook than we have at the moment.”

Beaumont hopes the cash injection can cover unions that are looking to replay postponed games later in 2020, though that isn’t assured and could clash with club fixtures. “We can move the international windows,” Beaumont said, when asked if international matches could even be rearranged for Christmas Day, “but it must be in consultation with our stakeholders — and that is clubs in Europe, in the north — so that we do have a consensus of opinion for the whole game, bearing in mind the pressure clubs and provinces are under.” global league might not necessarily include all the Six Nations countries, and that there could be a “subsidiary competition that involves all the emerging nations.”