Japan ‘could join Rugby Championship in two years’ says Agustín Pichot
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In an interview with The Times' Owen Slot,ice-chairman Agustín Pichot has revealed that Japan could join the Rugby Championship in less than two years.
SANZAAR will meet today in Tokyo to discuss the future of the competition with Japan's performance in the Rugby World Cup accelerating the talks and their inclusion will be discussed for the first time today by the four Sanzaar nations that make up the Rugby Championship: South Africa, New Zealand, Australia and Argentina.
Pichot told Slot, that he hopes to have a strategic plan in place in the next six months and for Japan to be admitted into the championship the year after. “In a dynamic world, 2021 would be a good target,” Pichot, 45, said.
Exclusive: Japan could be in the Rugby Championship by 2021. We must move fast, says Gus Pichot. https://t.co/ZHP11aF3z5
— owenslotTheTimes (@owenslot) October 25, 2019
Pichot says there is no excuse for moving so slowly this time. “We’ve done this before — we know how to do it,” he said.
Referring to finance and the requirement of a structured domestic league, Pichot said: “Japan has a lot of things better than Argentina did. Those are the things that are to be discussed tomorrow.”
