Frenchman Abdelatif Benazzi fails in second round of voting for World Rugby presidency

The former captain of the French XV, Abdelatif Benazzi will not be the next president of World Rugby, the global body governing the oval ball. He was beaten to the wire, Thursday, November 14, by former Australian international Brett Robinson, receiving, in the second round of voting, 25 votes from members of the federation council, against 27 for his rival.

Abdelatif Benazzi, 56, was one of three candidates to succeed Bill Beaumont – in office since 2016, the Englishman could not stand again. During the first round, Mr. Robinson received 22 votes, against 21 for the Frenchman and 9 for the Italian Andrea Rinaldo.

Quoted in the World Rugby press release, the new president of the body, aged 54, affirmed that he wanted to launch the “culture required to achieve commercial results for a modern global sport”. Faced with the difficulties of the discipline, particularly financial, he focused his campaign on making the game more spectacular and faster.

The ex-Wallaby is a strong supporter of several regulatory reforms currently being tested, such as reducing the time to shoot conversions or to prepare for scrums and throw-ins.

Opening rugby to other nations

He also defends the twenty-minute red card, which allows a team whose player is excluded to replace him after this period and therefore no longer be outnumbered. The vote on the worldwide experimentation of this measure was postponed pending a “more in-depth feedback” on the consequences of its adoption, the World Rugby Council decided on Thursday. France has positioned itself on the front line against this change, in the name of player safety.

Abdelatif Benazzi, one of the vice-presidents of the French Rugby Federation in charge of international affairs, had promised to work to open the sport to other countries, beyond the historic nations which are still hegemonic on the ground like in international bodies.