France 2007 - a rugby event. THE rugby event I've been awaiting for over four years!

In France, rugby is a sport mainly located in the South, especially the South West. However, it's becoming more popular these days thanks to one man - Max Guazzini, president of the Stade Francais club in Paris.
This remarkable guy has shown the rugby world that you can play a game as tough as rugby and be sexy in a calendar [for charity], or play in a pink strip with pink lilies on - lilies being the emblem of Paris.

Max was very clever: to attract people to Stade Francais’s Jean Bouin stadium, he began a ‘pay for one ticket and have a second free for your wife/girlfriend/partner’ policy - and it worked.

'I'm convinced that if this genius had been heading the organisation of France 2007, the average Frenchman would at least know where the Rugby World Cup takes place this year'


For the European Cup clash with Newcastle Falcons, the nearby Parc des Princes was a more suitable venue – so Max rented the home of PSG soccer team. When the football club changed their minds, claiming rugby was not good for the ground, Max hired the Stade de France, the national stadium - and in March last year, 80,000 people flooded in to watch a Paris v Biarritz match. Those fans came from the capital, of course – but also from the East, the North, the South and the West.

Families (including mine) spent that Saturday night peacefully watching a rugby match, plus a mini show before the game, and singing in a giant karaoke during the half-time. ‘Peacefully’ was the operative word because the previous day there had been a soccer match in the Parc - and the environment hadn't been that peaceful!

I'm not making propaganda against football, or in favour of Max. But I'm convinced that if this genius had been heading the organisation of France 2007, the average Frenchman would at least know where the Rugby World Cup takes place this year.

Last September, the national sport newspaper L’Equipe published a survey revealing that 75% of the population didn't know France was the host country of this wonderful event. Last month, they did a repeat survey, and the result was a bit better - 65%, just three months before the event. Ask those people if they know where the next Football World Cup (or even European championship) will be staged and I'm sure a lot more would know South Africa are hosting the tournament.

So where will this enthusiastic student be during THE rugby event I've been waiting for for so long? Well, I'm among the lucky people who got tickets and my parents and I will follow the All Blacks in Marseille, Lyon, Edinburgh and Toulouse.

But for a rugby-mad family who travelled to Australia for the 2003 tournament, attending only four matches when the World Cup takes place in your own country is not enough! So we bought extra tickets and while waiting between two All Blacks matches, we’ll go and support other teams in Saint-Etienne, Lyon, Edinburgh and Lens.

For all you rugby fans who won't be attending the World Cup, don't worry, I'll think about you and send you a free hug. I hope I'll meet some of you around France - and in New Zealand in four years.

In the meantime, enjoy the World Cup!