THERE are growing fears that the Rugby World Cup, the showpiece of the sport and its financial engine, could fall into the wrong hands because the International Rugby Board is demanding in the middle of an economic crisis that any nation wishing to host the tournament must give a massive financial guarantee before being considered.

Final bids are now being prepared to host the 2015 and 2019 tournaments, with at least eight nations showing interest, but an IRB directive that they must be guaranteed £80m for the 2015 event (they have moderated their demand from an original £100m) and a staggering £120m for 2019 has stopped many nations dead in their tracks, with even Australia expressing doubts. At present, only Italy appear to be in a position to come up with the guarantee - they have been promised support by the Italian government and Rome’s civic authorities.

Other unions feel that the guarantee could destabilise them. Martyn Thomas, chairman of the powerful Rugby Football Union, is worried that a dearth of unions willing to put up the guarantees will leave a vacuum that could see bids from outside rugby.

“There is concern that bids could be made from outside existing rugby nations and areas,” he says. “The tournament is highly prestigious and there will be interest from people who see the tournament as a commodity. I would not like to see it prostituted and money going out of the game.”

Others point to possible interest from the Middle East, in particular Dubai, and from corporate Russia and perhaps from other regions where the existing rugby union would be used as a front. The attractions are obvious. A recent Deloitte report on the 2007 World Cup concluded that the value to the French economy of hosting the tournament was in excess of £4 billion. Russia has already expressed interest in hosting in 2015, though the Russian rugby authorities are nowhere near remotely sophisticated or powerful enough on their own to mount such a bid.

England’s position on 2015 is critical to the whole future of the tournament. When the IRB imposed their financial demands even the RFU, the biggest and most financially powerful union in the world, blinked. There were rumours in the game at the time that the IRB were jealous of the big profits made by the hosting unions for Australia 2003 and France 2007, when the tournament derived revenue for the IRB as well as the hosts. It must be remembered that the IRB retain all money from sponsorship, corporate hospitality and television, so the host union would have only gate receipts to raise the money towards the guarantee. A four-man RFU group is, according to one RFU man not sitting on it, “crunching the numbers” to see if they can give the IRB guarantee. Francis Baron, the RFU chief executive, has already been quoted as saying: “With respect, if we cannot find the resources to make the guarantee, who can?”

But if England do bid, there would be yet another hurdle. All the greatest World Cups have been staged in one nation and England, quite rightly, want to bid as sole hosts. But already, and with a depressing and self-serving inevitability, both Scotland and Ireland have made the usual noises about a joint Four Home Unions bid, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. It is anything but. Ireland have practically ruled themselves out of serious rugby tournaments for ever by deciding to rebuild Lansdowne Road with a capacity of only 50,000 and the Scots’ record in worming their way into tournaments staged by other people is ghastly - in 1991, 1999 and 2007, when Scotland staged games in front of skeleton crowds, and when they could not even sell out games at Murrayfield involving Scotland, the event was tarnished by their participation.

The RFU are realistic. They know that the World Cup would be staged in the football season and that the biggest football stadiums would be off-limits, although Wembley would be free. To help towards their task of raising £80m they would be anxious to use the Millennium stadium and possibly other Welsh grounds for some matches. Roger Lewis, chief executive of the Welsh Rugby Union and Millennium stadium, sees the point. “The 2015 tournament must be in the northern hemisphere and it must be with England acting as sole host. They are the financial powerhouse. And we have here what most people see as the greatest rugby stadium in the world,” he says.

Neither the RFU nor the WRU will support the scattering of the event to the four winds. The rejection of the concept of another unfocused four home unions conglomerate event would then raise a final fascinating issue – would Ireland and Scotland be small-minded enough to cast their votes for what would be a palpably inferior bid from elsewhere, possibly even using a host rugby union as a front just to spite England? London, Rome, Dubai or Moscow? We shall see.