© Reuters /Stefan WermuthNew Zealand's team celebrates with the Webb Ellis trophy after winning the Rugby World Cup Final against Australia at Twickenham in London, October 31, 2015. - Reuters /Stefan Wermuth
The Rugby Football Union has confirmed its interest in hosting both the men's and women's World Cups following the opening of the new bidding process for the next two tournaments, claiming they would give a "priceless" double boost to the community game in England.
The 'dialogue phase' of World Rugby's joint tender process for hosting the 2027 and 2031 men's tournament and the 2025 and 2029 women's event opened on Monday.
Andy Cosslett, the RFU chairman has indicated the governing body was intent on making bids to host both tournaments, most likely the women's tournament in 2025 followed by the men's tournament in 2031.
The RFU believes hosting the men's World Cup would not only help to revitalise the grass-roots game but would also generate significant income to help recoup the losses suffered during the pandemic. Hosting the 2015 tournament generated revenue of £228.1 million for the RFU, even with England's pool stage exit.
"The men's World Cup is a big enterprise as I know very well," Cosslett, who was chairman of England Rugby 2015, the organising company for the tournament, told Telegraph Sport.
"It takes a huge amount of thought and effort but yes, why not? We are good at it. We can put these things on very well.
"I think it would be brilliant. There is no doubt that in 2015 - although it doesn't get much publicity, the lift it gave the community game and the amount of money we were able to channel back into the community at that point really did help, as it did back in 2003 [when England won the World Cup in Sydney].
"While these things are big endeavours, they are priceless to your game, absolutely priceless and we would love to give it another shot.
"2031 is on our horizon. We will talk to World Rugby and we will see where they are at with their own strategic requirements of location."
The Irish Rugby Football Union has indicated - despite exploratory talks about a joint bid with England, Scotland and Wales last autumn - it was not progressing the matter at this time, increasing the prospect of a sole bid by the RFU.
The RFU is likely to face a rival bid by the USA for 2031, with Australia the leading candidate for the 2027 tournament.
Whether or not the Government will be keen to underwrite the tournament fee, which is likely to be well in excess of £100 million, however is yet to be determined but Cosslett is optimistic.
"When economies have bigger issues, it is harder for governments to justify a big underwriting of a tournament," added Cosslett. "But we are talking 10 years away and that is a fair amount of time for things to come to normal so hopefully they will."
The RFU meanwhile see hosting the women's event as a key part of their strategy to grow the playing population from 40,000 to 100,000 in the next decade.
"We are very interested in looking at whether we can host for the women's World Cup in the near term," Cosslett added. "We have got recent knowledge of putting on by that time would be a big World Cup because the stakes are rising all the time and because the women's and girls' strategy is so important for us and we think that would be one way we could accelerate things even faster.
"If we have got 40,000 women registered now, we would love it to be 100,000 within the next seven or eight years. One way you do that you try to put a tournament like the World Cup in the middle of it and that would super-charge everything."
Detailed bids must be presented by May before undergoing evaluation by industry experts next February ahead of a vote by the World Rugby council in May next year.
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