England will make a solo bid to host the 2015 Rugby World Cup, confirmed chairman of the Rugby Football Union (RFU) Martyn Thomas.
The RFU’s proposal has received support from Prime Minister Gordon Brown and sports minister Andy Burnham after talks at Downing Street yesterday.
However, Thomas said England would consider moving some matches to other stadiums in Britain with Millennium Stadium (Cardiff), Murrayfield (Edinburgh), Hampden Park (Glasgow) and Croke Park/Lansdowne Road (Dublin) obvious candidates.
“England will bid for the World Cup,” said Thomas. “We have certainly had very good discussions with the Welsh in terms of using the facilities they have, particularly the Millennium Stadium but also the Ospreys and maybe the new Cardiff stadium.”
“I am sure if we go ahead with the bid we will certainly involve games in Wales. We haven't totally ruled out games further north. We want to make sure there are games in the north of England and that it reaches out to as many people as possible.”
Eight different countries have expressed an interest in hosting the 2015 event including the other three home nations. It is believed that neither Wales, Scotland nor Ireland have the facilities to be able to submit a bid without England.
