photo: FER

Game Over for Romania and Spain

It is game over for Romania and Spain. Both European countries have officially been disqualified from RWC 2019 for breaching player eligibility laws.

The Federación Española de Rugby (FER) published a release today on its website confirming the outcome, noting that all channels have now been exhausted, making Spain’s dream of playing in RWC 2019 officially over. The same is true of Romania.

The complete publication from the FER is as follows (translated from Spanish into English):


The Federation Española de Rugby (FER) reports that today, Wednesday it has received the response to the submitted appeal to World Rugby (WR) following the ruling that saw Los Leones left out of Rugby World Cup 2019 due to the alignment of players Mathieu Belie and Bastien Fuster, in addition to determine that the Belgium vs Spain fixture should not be replayed.

The resolution of the appeal committee simply confirms the outcome of the dispute committee, which also was appointed ad hoc by World Rugby.

“The appeal committee confirms the ruling of the dispute committee that shows that federations, even acting in good faith, can make mistakes and that World Rugby must take measures to prevent these circumstances from recurring.”

According to the decision of the World Rugby Court of Appeals,

“following the appeals filed by Romania and Spain, an independent appeal committee has confirmed the decision of the dispute committee regarding infringements of the eligibility of the players during the Rugby World Cup 2019 qualifying phase in the Rugby Europe Championship”.

It concludes that:

“In accordance with World Rugby regulations, the decision of the appeal committee is final and binding, without further appeal.”

The FER continues to consider, as it has stated on previous occasions and in the appeal itself, that this decision is unfair and that it is confirmed that in rugby the regulations do not apply to everyone in the same way, since it has been proven that the errors that were imputed to Spain were not such if the application of the norm had been strictly respected at the moment in which the players Belie and Fuster participated in 2008 and 2012, respectively, for France’s U20’s team.

It should be remembered that World Rugby is not subject to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in disciplinary matters, so the sports channels are exhausted.

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Formally created in June 2015, this website's goal is to increase media exposure of the Tier 2 rugby nations, and create a hub with a focus on the stories of rugby in the Americas - North, Central and South.

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