Spain’s appeal against their disqualification from next year’s Rugby World Cup in France for disqualifying an unqualified player from the 2021-22 European Rugby Championship was announced, World Rugby announced on Monday. «The Independent Appeals Commission reviewed the preliminary decision of the Independent Judicial Commission based on the evidence presented to itIt is said in the statement of the World Rugby. The Spanish Independent Appeals Committee rejected the appeal after examining in detail the Spanish և World Rugby World Cup.
Read it!Rugby World Cup. Spain was left out of the 2023 World Cup in France
The World Rugby said that the 10-point reduction in the World Cup qualifier used by the Independent Refereeing Commission, which was applied to the European qualifying table, is in force, which means that Romania qualifies as Europe 2 in Group B , which replaces Spain. Portugal replaces Romania in the final qualifying tournament to be held in November 2022.
The board of directors of the Spanish Rugby Federation (FER) announced in April that three members of the Alcobendas rugby club had forged a copy of the passport of Gavin van den Berg, born in South Africa, in order to be eligible. Spain qualified for the World Cup for the first time since 1999 after winning the European Rugby Championship (REP), but was disqualified from next year’s tournament in France for knocking out Van den Berg in two qualifiers.
The world rugby body, the governing body of the sport, has launched an investigation after Romania filed a complaint against Van den Berg’s jurisdiction, which lost its automatic qualification immediately after falling behind Spain. FER vice-president Jose Maria Appalza says Romania donated a photo of Van den Berg to a world rugby player at a wedding in South Africa in 2019, presumably two weeks before he left for Spain, according to the date on the player’s passport. the federation.
To be eligible, Van den Berg had to live in Spain for 36 months, of which at least 10 months a year. Van den Berg spent more than two months out of Spain in 2019. He did not comment on the allegations, but an independent jury said his travel stamps were engraved without the knowledge of Spain or the player. According to the rules of world rugby, the decision of the independent appeals commission is final, without further right of appeal.
Source: Le Figaro
