NZ not looking at 16-team RWC - Millar

Fairfax Media

NUMBERS GAME: Outgoing IRB chairman Syd Millar says it's simply not true that New Zealand is looking to make the next World Cup a 16-team tournament. That decision, he says, is the IRB's to make in due course.

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Outgoing IRB and RWC chairman Syd Millar has quashed reports suggesting New Zealand is looking to reduce the next World Cup to a 16-team competition.

Millar, who is being replaced as chairman of the international governing body's by Frenchman Bernard Lappaset, has poured cold water on reports doing the rounds in the north that New Zealand is ready to reduce the Cup by four teams.

New Zealand hosts the next World Cup in 2011, though Millar emphasised that the makeup of that tournament had yet to be ratified by the IRB.

He told media in France that stories suggesting New Zealand were driving a 16-team tournament in four years' time were simply wide of the mark.

"New Zealand tendered on a 20-team rugby World Cup," said Millar.

"They did not tender on a 16-team rugby World Cup, nor did they ever suggest it should be a 16-team Rugby World Cup.

"The reports that appear in the press that New Zealand has requested 16 teams are not true.

"It is the Rugby World Cup's decision as to what happens. No one has concluded whether it will be 16 or 12 or 18 or 20."

Millar did tell journalists the day after South Africa's 15-6 triumph in the final over England that the tournament was set to reap a massive profit for the IRB.

Millar said the tournament would gross around £180 million ($NZ495m), with half of that going as profits to the IRB. The French federation gained its revenue from hosting the event via ticket revenue.

But Millar told reporters that the World Cup had not been about raising as much money as possible, and used the decision to award New Zealand the next event as a prime example of that.

"The Rugby World Cup is not just about money at all," said Millar. "If it was just about money we probably wouldn't be going to New Zealand [in 2011].

"If we had [making large profits] as the criteria there would only be very few countries in the world [who could host the tournament]."

- © Fairfax NZ News