WHEN rugby union embraced a world tournament for the first time in 1987, the main sponsor was KDD, the Japanese communications giant. It is, therefore, appropriate that the first serious bid to host a World Cup in the professional era by a country outside the traditional eight foundation unions is by Japan, who go up against South Africa and New Zealand for the 2011 tournament.

“A fresh horizon” is the motif for Japan’s bid, the success of which will be determined by the IRB on November 17. By awarding the 2007 World Cup to France (much to the chagrin of England, who also bid for that tournament), the IRB has proved a willingness to go outside the English-speaking countries, but the next step will indicate just where the global game perceives itself to be.

Coincidentally, just as Japan muster their forces for a series of presentations to the countries whose votes will matter, the RFU has come up with proposals to amend the bidding system. “The award . . . is not necessarily based upon organisational capabilities or financial strengths, it is strongly influenced by the emotional and political needs of the global game,” the RFU claims in its revised strategic plan.

England’s belief is that there should be a long-term system of rotation, to facilitate planning and, crucially for Japan, to “enable the IRB to balance the need to maximise RWC revenues for development purposes on the one hand with the need to occasionally hold the RWC in a developing country such as Japan or the USA”.

The RFU considers that forward planning should incorporate the next five World Cups, a notion that would also eliminate the expenditure involved in the bid process — which took England representatives on a round-the-world tour in 2002 and earned them precisely one vote, from Canada — into which Japan are about to throw themselves.

So far, the Japanese have met the requirements of the tender process, even though the IRB raised queries over their ticketing proposals. In essence, Japan looked at the prices charged for tickets to Fifa’s World Cup, hosted in 2002 by Japan and South Korea, and halved them. They have since revised their prices upwards and, having already discussed their plans with Australia (with whom they signed an accord last month designed to promote rugby in Asia), will visit Canada next week.

They will address representatives of the France and Italy unions in Paris next month, along with Fira, the umbrella body for the other European nations, and then move on to the home unions. At the same time they hope that Argentina and Oceania representatives will visit Tokyo, where the RWC board will meet on October 14.

If Japan rank among rugby’s tier-two countries, they have a long history of involvement with the game that was introduced there in 1899 by Edward Bramwell Clarke, a Cambridge graduate. The Japan Rugby Football Union (JRFU) was founded 79 years ago and Japan are the present holders of the IRB’s Superpowers Cup. The country boasts the fifth largest rugby-playing population in the world — bigger than New Zealand’s — with a thriving Top League of 12 professional clubs and a vibrant game in its high schools and universities.

Coupled with that is Japan’s recent organisational track record. Apart from football’s World Cup three years ago and the Winter Olympics in Nagano in 1998, Japan played host to the swimming World Championships in Fukuoka in 2001 and have secured the athletics World Championships of 2007 in Osaka (an event they also staged in 1991). They can profit from these experiences as did Sydney from the 2000 Olympic Games, from which the Australian Rugby Union learnt before a 2003 World Cup hailed as the most successful global rugby tournament.

Nobby Mashimo, the JRFU chairman, acknowledges the weakness of his country’s playing record — one win, over Zimbabwe in 1991, in 16 pool matches of the five World Cups to have been played and heavy defeats by Scotland and Wales last year. Mashimo contends that the planning is there for improvement and that the Japanese public would buy into a world tournament as they did with the football World Cup.

“In some ways it would be a retrograde step if rugby wasn’t prepared to go there,” Rob Andrew, the Newcastle director of rugby whose team visited Japan last month, said. “It would send all the wrong messages if they didn’t. The game needs it and Japan can certainly host it. They have the facilities, the organisational skills, the transport, the hotels, it would be like falling off a log for them.”