The Business of Rugby Union Bernard Lapasset reaches down and taps his fingers on the low table. “So far no partner has pulled out,” he stresses. “Our partners have stood by us. That is why the crisis has not been very severe in rugby.”
To date, the 62-year-old president of the International Rugby Board (IRB) presides over a sport that has weathered the financial storms in the global economy relatively well. But the governing body’s decision to stage its flagship tournament in a country of fewer than 5m people, situated a dozen or so time zones away from the sport’s commercial powerhouses in the British Isles and France, may yet prove costly.
