REPORT: South Africa shelve World Cup 2027 and 2031 bids

The Rainbow Nation of South Africa will not be witnessing a World Cup on home soil in the near future. Following the unsuccessful World Cup 2023 bid, the South African Rugby Union will not hand in a bid to host the 2027 or 2031 World Cup tournaments.

According to the Afrikaans newspaper Rapport, SA Rugby can no longer afford to host the tournament, therefore it wouldn’t make sense to bid.

In 2017, South Africa was the prefered candidate to host the 2023 World Cup ahead of France and Ireland.

Stormers presser – Warrick Gelant and Labeeb Levy

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Stormers presser – Warrick Gelant and Labeeb Levy

However, in a very dramatic and controversial move the World Rugby Council voted for France, who received 24 votes compared to South Africa’s 15 in the second round of voting. Ireland were eliminated in the first round.

“The government will not currently be able to secure the guarantee of R2-billion, which was last required by World Rugby,” a source told Rapport when asked if SA Rugby could bid again.

“Not now with the state of the economy, and especially not with what the economy will look like after the Covid-19 pandemic,”

Thus far, SA Rugby has handed in bids to host 2011, 2015 and 2019 tournaments and were unsuccessful on all occasions.

Meanwhile, Australia is expected to be awarded the right to host the 2027 World Cup, while the United States of America (USA) will top the early queue to host the 2031 event.

World Rugby is set to vote and make the announcement in May 2022.