Irish Rugby World Cup process complaint

Ireland are hoping to host rugby union's best players in 2023

Irish rugby officials have complained to the world rugby authorities about the selection process for the 2023 World Cup.

Ireland are hoping to host the tournament for the first time, but were ranked last in an evaluation report released last week.

Ireland say their bid - which includes matches in Dublin, Belfast and Cork - has been assessed "unreasonably".

South Africa came out top in the evaluation report.

France were second and Ireland, the only other bidder, was in third place.

A final decision on the hosting of the tournament will be made next week after a vote by World Rugby Council members.

Although countries are entitled to vote for any of the three bidders, the Rugby World Cup board has recommended they vote for South Africa, on the basis of the findings of the evaluation report.

The Kingspan Stadium in Belfast is among the venues proposed in Ireland's 2023 Rugby World Cup bid

It was known that Ireland were privately unhappy with how the evaluation report was drawn up. Now the chief executive of the Irish Rugby Football Union, Philip Browne, has outlined Ireland's complaints in detail, in a letter seen by the BBC.

He has criticised the South African bid and outlined a list of queries in the four-page letter sent earlier this week to the chief executive of World Rugby, Brett Gosper.

Mr Browne wrote: "There are very clear examples in recent times of starkly empty stadia in South Africa for significant fixtures.

"The evaluation report does not appear to address this in any meaningful way."

He also raised security issues.

He asked: "Was an independently recognised, world class security organisation used to review the underlying security situation within each bidding country... if not, why not?"

The letter concludes: "In our opinion, Ireland's scoring has suffered unreasonably, relative to the scoring for other bidders."

Brian O'Driscoll, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Dick Spring ahead of submitting the Irish bid in September

The three bids were scored using a range of criteria, including the quality of stadiums and infrastructure. Financial, commercial and security assessments were also made.

South Africa ranked highest with a score of 78.97%, France was second with 75.88% and Ireland third with 72.25%.

One of the areas where Ireland scored relatively badly was in terms of stadiums.

France and South Africa have more large, established sports grounds whereas one of the stadiums in the Irish bid - the new Casement Park in Belfast - has not been built and does not yet have planning permission.

The vote on the 2023 tournament hosts will take in London on Wednesday November 15.