Pressure is mounting on the suspended World Rugby vice-chairman Bernard Laporte to cut all administrative ties with the sport with immediate effect following his conviction for corruption. Laporte has signalled his intention to appeal against his two‑year suspended prison sentence and remains president of the French Rugby Federation.
The scandal – in which Mohed Altrad, the Montpellier owner, also received a suspended 18‑month sentence and fine – has already prompted Laporte to step aside from his World Rugby role just nine months before the 2023 World Cup which France is hosting.
Many in France, however, now regard Laporte’s position within the FFR as untenable after he was found guilty of an illegal conflict of interests, influence peddling and four instances of passive corruption.
Under French law the appeal process could conceivably extend into 2024 or beyond, raising the possibility of Laporte continuing as an influential power-broker. New Zealand Rugby is already said to be seeking urgent answers from the French construction company Altrad, which signed a six-year shirt sponsorship deal with the All Blacks and Black Ferns in August.
World Rugby has asked Neil Hallett, its newly appointed independent ethics officer, to look into the circumstances surrounding the French court’s decision. Hallett, a former detective inspector in the New Zealand police, is expected to publish his findings and recommendations by the end of January. The World Rugby chairman, Sir Bill Beaumont, will take on Laporte’s committee duties in the interim.
Any prospect of Laporte performing any kind of prominent public-facing role at the Rugby World Cup next year is already understood to be remote. His role in helping France to secure the 2023 hosting rights ahead of the official preferred bidder South Africa, however, did not form any part of the corruption probe that reached its climax on Tuesday.
Wayne Barnes, meanwhile, says he has considered walking away from refereeing after online abuse was directed at his wife and children following South Africa’s 30-26 defeat against France in Marseille last month. The outcome prompted South Africa’s director of rugby, Rassie Erasmus, to post video clips on Twitter which appeared to question some of Barnes’s decisions.
Erasmus was suspended for two Tests but Barnes, who was overseeing his 101st Test, subsequently reported two perpetrators to the police. “When you’ve done 100 games, you think you can prepare for most things,” Barnes said in an interview with The Good, The Bad and The Rugby podcast. “You can’t prepare for that. It affects you and it affects your family. Of course I have questioned my refereeing future, that’s a constant conversation you have with your family.”
