World awaits most viewed Rugby World Cup

The eighth edition, hosted across 13 venues in England and Cardiff, has already broken all previous ticket sales records with 2.25 million or 95 per cent of tickets sold, surpassing the record set in 2007.

And in a further boost at England 2015 every try, kick, pass and tackle will be accessible to a potential reach of 772 million households (up by 15 per cent from 2011) in 209 territories via 103 licenced TV broadcasters.

With 43 free-to-air broadcasters and 23,000 hours of coverage anticipated across all licensees (15,000 in 2011), the scene is set for the most-viewed Rugby World Cup to date.

Every match will be produced live for the world feed by host broadcaster ITV with audiences round the world set to experience new innovations, such as Hawk-Eye video replay technology.

Real-time social and digital clips in the UK between ITV, Rugby World Cup and Twitter, means that the very best of the action will be available to fans on the run.

World Rugby Chairman Bernard Lapasset said: “World Rugby’s mission is to grow the global rugby family and England 2015 represents a golden opportunity to reach, engage and inspire new audiences across the UK and around the world.

“This record broadcast platform represents our commitment to make rugby available for all and demonstrates our strategic commitment to favour strong free-to-air platform coverage to more lucrative pay TV in key strategic markets such as India, Brazil, USA and China.

“With only days to go, the stage is set for a very special and record-breaking Rugby World Cup that will be a game-changer in many territories as rugby continues to grow across every continent.”

Editors notes

About Rugby World Cup: Rugby World Cup is the financial engine behind unprecedented investment and growth in rugby worldwide. The net Rugby World Cup surplus from the commercial success of France 2007 and New Zealand 2011 has enabled World Rugby to invest more than £150 million in the game between 2009 and 2012 and commit an anticipated injection of more than £180 million between 2013 and 2016 to underwrite a large range of major funding initiatives including annual national union grants and strategic investments focusing on growing participation and increasing competition across all 120 national member unions affiliated to World Rugby.

About England 2015:Rugby World Cup 2015, hosted in England between 18 September and 31 October, will be a celebration of rugby and its unique character-building values, exciting and inspiring the nation and the world to play and support the game. England Rugby 2015 are the organising committee for Rugby World Cup 2015 and will deliver the six-week tournament, hosted in 10 English cities and in Cardiff, Wales. Thirteen match venues will play host to the 48 games that will celebrate and engage more than two million spectators, including more than 400,000 international travelling fans.

About Tackle Hunger: Tackle Hunger is a partnership between World Rugby and its official humanitarian partner, the UN World Food Programme, which highlights the importance of good nutrition not just to play rugby but to enable children to develop both physically and intellectually. For Rugby World Cup 2015, the partnership has already generated more than one million meals for the WFP school feeding programme and a series of planned activations with tournament partners is encouraging the rugby family to take up the challenge to help build a brighter future for undernourished children. To find out more, visit http://www.wfp.org/tacklehunger

About official travel and hospitality programmes:Rugby Travel & Hospitality Limited are the exclusive provider of official hospitality at Rugby World Cup 2015 in England and Wales. After successfully delivering the official hospitality programme for Rugby World Cups 2007 France and 2011 New Zealand, RTH have been appointed as the official hospitality provider for the next two Rugby World Cup Tournaments in England in 2015 and Japan in 2019.

For further information on official hospitality packages and to purchase last remaining tickets for every match at Twickenham please visit www.rugbyworldcup.com/hospitality

RTH is also responsible for managing the official travel programme for the Tournament. For further information about the Official Travel Agents and their ticket inclusive supporter tours (ie travel packages) please visit http://supportertours.rugbyworldcup.com/travel_agents_list.aspx

World Rugby takes important steps to maintain RWC’s integrity

In line with international best practice and in the interests of all players, their support personnel and unions, World Rugby has implemented a comprehensive anti-corruption strategy for Rugby World Cup 2015.

Interest in RWC 2015 has never been higher and, with that rise in profile, it is expected that it will attract record levels of betting compared with previous tournaments.

In view of the threats to integrity experienced by other sports and in light of best practice including as implemented by the International Olympic Committee, World Rugby has proactively put in place a robust and proportionate integrity programme for RWC 2015. Its stated purpose is to protect the tournament and its participants from corrupt practices and unauthorised gambling.

In addition, World Rugby has partnered with the UK Gambling Commission along with UK police to establish a sophisticated integrity framework around the event.

Central to World Rugby’s integrity strategy is the delivery of education to all players, teams and match officials. All participants are required to complete the World Rugby online anti-corruption and betting education programme at http://integrity.worldrugby.org/ prior to the commencement of the tournament. The education programme, has been implemented successfully at many levels of the game since 2012 and currently has nearly 10,000 registered users.

When teams and match officials arrive in England for the tournament, supplemental education is planned through the medium of an in-person briefing from World Rugby integrity officers. These officers, who are all experts in the field of sports integrity, will be present throughout the tournament to deal with any queries or issues teams or officials may have in relation to integrity and to protect the participants from any unauthorised third-party approaches.

In conjunction with these partnerships, World Rugby has contracted the world’s leading betting monitoring agency, Sportradar. Using its widely trusted Fraud Detection System (FDS), it will monitor global betting markets for any suspicious betting behaviours and anomalous odds movements. In addition, the FDS will also monitor the volumes across the markets to provide a unique insight into potential infringements of the integrity code.

World Rugby Chief Executive Brett Gosper said: "Corruption is a big issue in sport and we have seen how some sports’ reputations have been damaged by incidents of match-fixing and other breaches of anti-corruption rules. While there is no evidence that a problem exists in rugby we would be naïve to think it could not happen and it would be irresponsible not to implement appropriate measures to guard against it.

“Rugby is now part of the Olympic family and anti-corruption considerations are an integral part of the Olympic Charter. So we have a wider responsibility to the global sports family to uphold the principles of fair play and integrity in every aspect of the tournament. Anti-corruption is a crucial part of that."

In addition to the Gambling Commission and its close relationship with UK police, World Rugby has also signed integrity memoranda of understanding with leading gambling operators, to enable World Rugby to access the vast databases of betting information held by those bodies.

The first modern anti-corruption regulations were introduced by World Rugby in 2012 building upon the existing provisions which prevented betting by teams on their own matches and requiring all players to participate to their best.

Email notifications or information can be sent in the strictest confidence to:confidential@worldrugby.org.

Further details of World Rugby’s anti-corruption initiatives can be found at http://integrity.worldrugby.org/.