Romania World Cup Qualification - Match Fixing Allegations

First topic message reminder :

To cut a long story short, for Romania to qualify they needed Belgium to beat Spain.  The European Rugby Federation (headed by Romanian Octavian Morariu) appointed three Romanian officials to oversee the game between Belgium and Spain.

Belgium won and the end of the game saw ugly scenes with Spanish players attacking the referee (allegedly successfully).

See the below video and make up your own mind.  I think this absolutely stinks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3LwfEJU1ow&feature=youtu.be

TightHEAD wrote:This a country that throws donkeys and Goats off of buildings and stab spears into Bulls for entertainment!

I don't want them at the RWC.

Now, tourists won't change culture. But there are a lot of tourists in Spain in Summer - all through the year really - from lots of countries. It's a very popular destination for Northern Europeans; English, Irish, Germans, Dutch, etc. Many of those tourists do the touristy thing and take in a bullfight or two. So the rest of Europe tut-tuts Spain but their people help finance the 'entertainment'.

In Britain you hunt foxes for sport no? All cultures have their legacy issues.

Used to. I'm sure some people still do illegally same as dog fighting.

Collapse2005 wrote:In Britain you hunt foxes for sport no?

Chavs too. Stun 'em first though.

Cardiff Dave wrote:

Collapse2005 wrote:In Britain you hunt foxes for sport no?

Chavs too. Stun 'em first though.

Id be on for a cull.

I like Spain - in Malaga and Seville last Easter.
Fantastic experience seeing all the festivals
Going to a quiet secluded bit of Menorca this June
Great place as long as you avoid the Benidorm, Torremolinos, Ibizas of this world

Ibiza??? You want to avoid Ibiza??????

Whatever for, Geoff!!!!

Great Chav hunting this time of year, indeed all year!

Depends where you go in Ibiza. Don't believe all of the hype that it's just trash and chavs and pills and clubs! Get out to the hills. Some stunning areas of Ibiza. Quiet areas too. Some secluded beaches. I've taken my family there (wife and two kids - 6 and 2 at the time). The only problem is the plane and airports. Can't get away from the chavs/clubbers then!

Now Benidorm on the other hand......

Oh I know Oracle.... but don't ruin the Chav allusions by speaking facts.

is that where people go to "get mad with it"?

You know, the type! Uneducated chavs that roam around in packs. Often with their tshirts tucked into their shorts with their skinny wee upper-bodies all red with sunburn. Hooligans that want to "get on the drink" and pick fights with other holiday makers for no reason. Utter puddle drinkers who travel to warmer climes with the sole benefit to humanity being that when they go into the sea they get their annual wash! Toothless, ill-mannered buffoons who are allergic to work, hygiene products and vegetables.

you know! Glasgow Supporters!

Ha ha! This is becoming a top grade thread.

Another time filler for the beeb perhaps?
Pay a bunch of people, family and other animals to holiday in Spain for a fortnight. Record what happens. Pad it out a bit to make a series. Call it educational for arguments sake. Sell it on later. Kerching!!! Everybody's 'appy.

Cardiff Dave wrote:Another time filler for the beeb perhaps?
Pay a bunch of people, family and other animals to holiday in Spain for a fortnight. Record what happens. Pad it out a bit to make a series. Call it educational for arguments sake. Sell it on later. Kerching!!! Everybody's 'appy.

“Families Wot War... Abroad”
“Family Swap.... Ibeeeeefa!”
“Benidorm Bouncers.....on Benefits”

The sad thing is that these are now plausible shows!

SecretFly wrote:Ha ha!  This is becoming a top grade thread.  

You should join in on the Scottish threads more! We go from discussing how Vern Cotter laid the foundations to improve Scottish rugby to why the flat earth society is inherently wrong on a multitude of levels to then discussing what Esther Ranson should call her next cat. All in the same thread!

tigertattie wrote:

SecretFly wrote:Ha ha!  This is becoming a top grade thread.  

You should join in on the Scottish threads more! We go from discussing how Vern Cotter laid the foundations to improve Scottish rugby to why the flat earth society is inherently wrong on a multitude of levels to then discussing what Esther Ranson should call her next cat. All in the same thread!

Sausages.

The Oracle wrote:

Cardiff Dave wrote:Another time filler for the beeb perhaps?
Pay a bunch of people, family and other animals to holiday in Spain for a fortnight. Record what happens. Pad it out a bit to make a series. Call it educational for arguments sake. Sell it on later. Kerching!!! Everybody's 'appy.

“Families Wot War... Abroad”
“Family Swap.... Ibeeeeefa!”
“Benidorm Bouncers.....on Benefits”

The sad thing is that these are now plausible shows!

Aye.
Chavwatch live from the Costa Blanca.
Packham'll like that I reckon.

tigertattie wrote:

SecretFly wrote:Ha ha!  This is becoming a top grade thread.  

You should join in on the Scottish threads more! We go from discussing how Vern Cotter laid the foundations to improve Scottish rugby to why the flat earth society is inherently wrong on a multitude of levels to then discussing what Esther Ranson should call her next cat. All in the same thread!

Oh we're a bit the same ourselves tattie on Irish threads.... all over the place..... at least we used to be when more than five or six of us existed. There's only about a handful of us left. So unfortunately rugby is the topic mostly

The irony in this thread is that the word Chav probably derives from a Romanian word (Chavi) which means youth.
Maybe we have come full circle

I was always under the impression that Chav came from ‘Cheltenham Average’.

The Oracle wrote:I was always under the impression that Chav came from ‘Cheltenham Average’.

Thought Chavs came from Sports Direct?

Council housing and violent if I remember correctly

The question is what rugby players would be good chavs. We all know the players that wouldn't look out of place in these party spots

Brendan wrote:Council housing and violent if I remember correctly

The question is what rugby players would be good chavs.  We all know the players that wouldn't look out of place in these party spots

The council house and violent was added after the term came bro use, retrofitted if you will

Its like the derivation of neds...

The latest development in this is that Belgium played an ineligible player against Germany.

Playing an ineligible player, as Tahiti found out, can get you booted from World Cup qualification.

The upshot of this might be that Belgium's result against Germany is overturned, in which case it's business as usual.

The alternative is they get booted out of World Cup qualification, every time would be awarded 5 point wins against Belgium. In which case Spain would be the Europe 1 qualifier.

The real winners in all this will be the lawyers.

http://www.americasrugbynews.com/2018/03/25/belgium-face-ineligible-player-charge-in-world-cup-qualifier/

Sounds like an easy out for world rugby

There's now rumours going around now that Faka'osilea the Romanian centre was ineligible for them having played for Tonga 7s in the past.

Also questions about 2 of Spains players Bélie (played for France under 20s against Wales under 20s in 2008) and Visensang (played for France under 20s against Australia in 2011).

What happens if Belgium, Spain and Romania all get booted out? Do Russia and Germany come in?

Golden wrote:There's now rumours going around now that Faka'osilea the Romanian centre was ineligible for them having played for Tonga 7s in the past.

Also questions about 2 of Spains players Bélie (played for France under 20s against Wales under 20s in 2008) and Visensang (played for France under 20s against Australia in 2011).

What happens if Belgium, Spain and Romania all get booted out? Do Russia and Germany come in?

You'd assume so.

Europe have 2 spots, with Georgia automatically qualified.

World Cup qualification is based on ENC Division 1 minus Georgia. As Georgia beat everyone and didn't give up a single LBP, you can effectively just read the table from 2 to 6 with no adjustment.

The best finisher in the 5 team table (or 2nd team in the ENC Division 1) will qualify for the World Cup.

The second best finisher will play off against Portugal (winners of ENC Division 2) and the winner will go into the European/Oceania play-off against Samoa. The winner of that game will go to the World Cup, the loser will go into the Repechage.

So if Belgium, Romania and Spain were all disqualified, Russia would be Europe 1 by virtue of beating Germany and qualify. Germany would qualify for the play-off by virtue of turning up to all their games and not playing any ineligible players, and play Portugal. The winner of that would lose to Samoa and go into the Repechage and ultimately lose out to Canada.

The other part in all this is Europe's reward for having a team who automatically qualified is they lost a place while the islands got extra places because non of them got automatic spots.  Seems like no reward for doing well. If Europe 1 & 2 Had stayed as was both Rominia and Spain would have qualified or as above maybe just Russia and Germany if the play thing is true

Brendan wrote:The other part in all this is Europe's reward for having a team who automatically qualified is they lost a place while the islands got extra places because non of them got automatic spots.  Seems like no reward for doing well. If Europe 1 & 2 Had stayed as was both Rominia and Spain would have qualified or as above maybe just Russia and Germany if the play thing is true

It does seem a bit counter-productive, to have the top 12 qualify and then just bend the regional qualification system to have the same teams qualify anyway. But then I guess the second argument is why should Spain benefit because Georgia beat Tonga 2 and a half years ago?

With Argentina and Italy rounding off the 10 that were going to qualify there were two places up for grabs.

Tonga got beat by Georgia and Japan beat Samoa. Fiji were the only ones I felt sorry for.

I think that it would be better to a plate copetition at the world cup for 3rd and 4th. 4 semi finalists also qualify for the next world cup. It would be fairer on the team that gets Italy or Argentina in their group and gives them something to actually play for at it.

It might be a bit cheeky but England would have won something at their world cup

Brendan wrote:With Argentina and Italy rounding off the 10 that were going to qualify there were two places up for grabs.

Tonga got beat by Georgia and Japan beat Samoa.  Fiji were the only ones I felt sorry for.

I think that it would be better to a plate copetition at the world cup for 3rd and 4th.  4 semi finalists also qualify for the next world cup.  It would be fairer on the team that gets Italy or Argentina in their group and gives them something to actually play for at it.

It might be a bit cheeky but England would have won something at their world cup

I think that was mooted at the last World Cup. I'm sure it wasn't 100% about England, performances from Japan, Fiji and Georgia really captured some imaginations, and I think people felt it was a shame to see them go so early. These teams don't get loads of attention up here and certainly not at full strength.

Plate quarter finals of England vs Samoa, Japan vs Fiji, Georgia vs Romania and Italy vs Tonga would have given the tournament an extra dimension, especially if there was qualification at stake (and yes, given England a chance to win something!)

Five Spanish players banned by Rugby Europe for the scenes after the match when they confronted the ref. Bans vary from 10 months to 3.5 months though not sure when they start (ie a 3.5 month ban would end by the start of next season)

While it is not unreasonable, as the behavior was completely unacceptable, the management of the body enforcing this is dominated by Romanians. This is the very organisation that ignored the appeal against the appointment of the Romanian ref who was either completely inadequate or worst case "crooked".

Interesting to see if anything comes of the review of the game and it's officiating.

LondonTiger wrote:Five Spanish players banned by Rugby Europe for the scenes after the match when they confronted the ref. Bans vary from 10 months to 3.5 months though not sure when they start (ie a 3.5 month ban would end by the start of next season)

While it is not unreasonable, as the behavior was completely unacceptable, the management of the body enforcing this is dominated by Romanians. This is the very organisation that ignored the appeal against the appointment of the Romanian ref who was either completely inadequate or worst case "crooked".

Interesting to see if anything comes of the review of the game and it's officiating.

The bans will start from when they were banned. If a player is sent off, they are automatically banned until their hearing - therefore the ban starts from the day they were sent off. As these players weren't sent off, it depends if they were still playing or if they were banned when cited pending further investigation.

I'm also not clear whether these bans will follow the "meaningful games" rule. Normally bans are done in weeks and you miss X weeks where you have a meaningful fixture. So bans would pause in the off-season. Months would surely be a departure from protocol, but maybe it has just been poorly reported (I read months on BBC - maybe they thought they were helping converting 45 weeks into an easily conceivable number).

Finally, there was a World Rugby statement that didn't get posted here or widely reported at all. The gist of it is that while World Rugby respects Rugby Europe's right to run the ENC how they see fit and appoint an all-Romanian team despite Spain's protests if that's what they want, World Rugby themselves weren't convinced and were thinking of replaying the Belgium vs Spain game so they could recalculate their World Cup standings - without affecting the finishing table in the ENC (which is under Rugby Europe's jurisdiction).

However, now considering the ineligible player issues that have resurfaced, they're commissioning a full review into the tournament and I guess whether they're happy using it as the proxy qualifying comp for the World Cup.

Upshot of this is although Romania have "qualified", that's under review. Spain/Portugal play-off to determine the European qualifier for the Europe/Oceania play-off against Samoa has also been postponed indefinitely.

With time running out and the above play-off and a repechage for the loser to play, expect to see this move along relatively quickly (in World Rugby terms), and we'll possibly see a bit of a bodge job rather than a replaying of any fixtures.

https://www.rugbyworldcup.com/news/324233

The latest I've heard on this (and it's just rumour at this stage):

*The eligibility issue will be settled with fines all round.
*Belgium vs Spain will be replayed for the purpose of determining Europe 1

I'd expect Tahiti to therefore appeal their sanction of being thrown out of the competition. But, to my knowledge, any Tahiti claim would only get them added back in, it wouldn't change the outcome handed down to the countries impacted by this judgement.

I also wouldn't expect any leniency or overturning of bans for the Spanish players who have subsequently been banned from the first game against Belgium.

So Russia through and winner of Portugal v Germany play Samoa

Brendan wrote:So Russia through and winner of Portugal v Germany play Samoa

Just read that, World Rugby coming down harsh on ineligibility. It's a shame as I wanted to see Spain get to their first World Cup, but they can hardly complain.

You'd expect Samoa to pretty comfortably turnover the winner of Portugal v Germany, who would then go into the Repechage. The big winners here are therefore Canada, who now must be strong favourites to progress through the Repechage play-off.

Could you imagine Germany in the World CUp.

They'd get smashed this time round...but who would be against that being a stepping stone to huge improvements.

The USA and Germany are the 2 biggest growth opportunities for RU.......let's hope we can overcome the current club/country hiatus - infective north south divide.

kingelderfield wrote:The USA and Germany are the 2 biggest growth opportunities for RU.......let's hope we can overcome the current club/country hiatus - infective north south divide.

While the US, Japan and Russia would provide strong financial growth it is a lot harder than Canada.  Rugby has a big enough base in western Canada where most of the money is.  It wouldn't take much to build a strong rugby base that was secured financially.  I would say Canada would have been the second biggest rugby nation after Argentina in rugby in the Americas.  They seem to have been tossed to the side for the riches of USA and Japan.

Brendan wrote:

kingelderfield wrote:The USA and Germany are the 2 biggest growth opportunities for RU.......let's hope we can overcome the current club/country hiatus - infective north south divide.

While the US, Canada and Russia would provide strong financial growth it is a lot harder than Canada.  Rugby has a big enough base in western Canada where most of the money is.  It wouldn't take much to build a strong rugby base that was secured financially.  I would say Canada would have been the second biggest rugby nation after Argentina in rugby in the Americas.  They seem to have been tossed to the side for the riches of USA and Japan.

In what way have they been tossed aside? They are currently ranked 21st in the world, with 20 teams participating they arent there through merit (or lack of). USA are 15th, and there on ability. Whilst its true that Canada has a longer and deeper rooted history of Union they havent translated that into a succesaful national side or a truely widely played game. According to the world ruby site at the start of 2017 there was 120,000 registered players in the US (more than Ireland and not far short of Scotrland and Wales combined), and just 28,000 in Canada. Argentina 105,000 registered players. Although theyve had moderate success in the past Canada is a pretty small nation and rugby a fairly niche sport there.
Obviously player numbers doesnt tell the whole story in terms of potential on the international stage (see Ireland) or audience but its unfair to say that Canada has somehow been binned. The ganme has just grown quickly in the US thanks to colleges taking it on, and their interntaional team has gradually improved whilst Canadas has failed to keep up.

Anyway, back on topic.

It looks as though World Rugby have taken the easy option within all this, and punished everybody else, and allowed the corruption to stand.

Absolutely shocking, and a joke.

The right thing should have been done here. Sort out that bollix of a rugby match, make an example of it, then look at the ineligible player issue.

It just looks as though the controversy of that actual match will now get brushed under the carpet, and WR will pretend it did not happen.

Sounds like every govening body to me.

The problem that started all this is due to who runs which organisations.  Below are examples of Unions using their employees to benefit their team or themselves (tongue in cheek)

WRU instruct Owen to make sure England lose so they can finish above them and have more money to fund the dragons.  Owens kills England at the breakdown resulting in no momentum, giving a much higher penalty count compared to the other team and had a breakaway try called back for offside that had not been signalled and would have changed the game. (I am using it as an example not saying he was bias at all, England just had not luck)

2007 RFU instruct their ref to make sure the All-Blacks lose. Near the end he rules out a try for a forward pass and then refuses to give a clickable  penalty to the AB for the last 15 mins.  England make the final and the ref is rewarded by being made the number 1 ref of the RFU. (Again I don't think it)

2011 having been beaten by Wales the IRFU instructed their ref to make sure France won which he did by sending off their best player early on. (Again I don't think it but can be conceived that way)

SRU need a ref in order to cheat so they are clean

The ref I am sure has been dealt with and will not be reffing in the ENC division 1 again.