World Rugby’s new chairman, Brett Robinson, has outlined his urgent mission to tackle the sport’s acute financial crisis, after narrowly winning the vote to succeed Sir Bill Beaumont.
The former Australia flanker became the first elected figurehead of the global governing body from the southern hemisphere, by edging out ex-France captain Abdelatif Benazzi 27-25 in the second round of voting.
As expected, it had become a two-horse race when the Italian candidate, Andrea Rinaldo, was eliminated after gaining just nine votes in the first round, compared to 22 for Robinson and 21 for Benazzi.
Having come through the tense, tight ballot at a luxury hotel here in the Irish capital, the 54-year-old victor spoke about his pride and pressing priorities.
‘It’s a great privilege and honour to be elected to chair World Rugby,’ said Robinson. ‘I was honoured to be put up, but to have the game come and support me is fabulous.
‘Work starts today. There are a list of things that (World Rugby’s) Council want from me, having elected me, and I’ve got to start looking at those in some detail.
Brett Robinson has seen off the competition to become the new World Rugby chairman
Robinson (second-right) will replace outgoing Sir Bill Beaumont (second-left) in the role
The result was a disappointment for former French star Abdelatif Benazzi who expected to win
‘I was very clear leading into the elections that the financial sustainability of our member unions is at crisis point, so we have to find ways, collectively, to deal with that. I was really clear about the need to grow the game, while ensuring our core markets are in a good place.
‘I was clear about the competitions that matter to us – the Nations Championship getting off the ground, the women’s game continuing to grow, and our platform around the Sevens being reset after the Olympics. I was also really clear about listening to our fans.
‘There is not enough ball in play, too much senseless kicking, and we’re not promoting teams to attack. Finally, World Rugby as an organisation has been in the professional era for about 30 years.
‘Now, we’ve got so much to think about as an organisation, what our priorities are, and how we can be fit, lean, and ready to deliver.’
The perception going into the election was that Robinson was a status quo candidate while Benazzi was more focused on overseeing an era of global expansion.
Asked if his aim was to reinforce the game’s core unions and nations rather than targeting new markets, Robinson added: ‘We’ve done some great work in the past few months bringing our top unions together.
‘There are revenue and cost levers we can play with. We did a workshop four weeks ago, and last night the CEOs and chairs of the major unions came together as a follow-on from that. We’re into some detail about those things now.’
This was not only a satisfactory outcome for Australia, it also represented a perfect result for the RFU, who have been able to maintain English influence at the top of World Rugby.
Robinson drew attention to the Rugby Sevens platform being ‘reset’ after the Olympics
He also vowed to assist the women’s game as it ‘continued to grow’ in popularity
The result is good news for the RFU as it maintains English influence at the top of rugby after Beaumont’s exit
Former England full-back Jonathan Webb will serve as vice-chairman after being elected to the executive board, after the RFU strongly and openly backed Robinson’s campaign.
Benazzi had been confident of victory in the chairman election and as he hurried to leave the hotel after his agonising defeat, he lamented the decision by Rugby Africa to cast their two votes in favour of Robinson.
The Morocco-born candidate had evidently expected to be supported by the region whose leading nation, South Africa, were staunchly supportive of Benazzi’s bid for the lead role.
Shortly after the voting concluded, the president of Rugby Africa, Herbert Mensah – a Ghanaian businessman and sports administrator – could be seen posing for selfies with Robinson. It emerged that Mensah had been voted on to the new executive board.
Another man hoping to gain one of those coveted seats at the top table was former Argentina captain Agustin Pichot, who had narrowly lost the previous chairman election to Beaumont in 2020. However, the popular Pumas legend missed out, as did the president of Rugby South America, Sebastian Pineyrua.
