Women's World Cup 2010 - potential hosts break cover.

At last someone appears to have bid to host the next Women's World Cup.

Despite the success of the 2006 event in Canada, public bids for the 2010 event have not been exactly thick on the ground and there had been some concern about whether anyone would step forward. Now at last the first bidder for 2010 has decided to break cover and it is (roll of drums...) Germany!

Our Teutonic cousins over the channel have had a long standing enthusiasm for women's rugby, not regretably reflected by playing success (though they had a good European Championship this year), and successfully hosted the FIRA European Championship in 2005. However that was a rather smaller event than what is likely to be required for 2010.

This is, though, a very serious bid. According to the IRB the DRV (Germany's RFU) is hoping that the IRB will see that a brand new host nation would be good for the top women’s event in world rugby and also boost the sport in Germany itself.

At press conference in Hamburg today the DRV proposed that the competition would again be a twelve-team tournament and will take place in August and September 2010. Three potential cities - Hamburg, Hannover and Heidelberg - are being proposed as potential bases for the tournament (though this will probably reduced to two) which will initially comprise four pools, each of three nations.

The IRB have also announced today that they have received expressions of interest from England, South Africa and Kazakhstan, so Germany may not have a complete free run. The summer could be interesting as we what to see what - if anything - the other three countries will propose to compete with Germany's bid. A final decision on which country will host the event is expected in early September.

Despite being up against two "big guns" neither Germany nor Kazakhstan's bid should be dismissed. Only last week the latter hosted a successful Asian championship - particularly for the Kazakhs who won the title for the second year running (in fact they have never lost a game in this tournament) and awarding the tournment to a "small nation" would fit in with a perception of IRB policy, which seems to balance the "closed shop" that applies to the men's world cup (only the Chosen Few need bother applying, as Japan found out) with a tendency to award everything else to any smaller nation that will take it on (I can't say that I think this attempted slight of hand works, but anyway...).