Chorus of discontent makes World Rugby take action on disharmonious anthems

Fans’ and pundits’ chorus of discontent has had Rugby World Cup bosses change their tune.

World Cup officials confirmed the prematch anthems will be changed after widespread complaints on the opening weekend of this year’s tournament.

A project involving 7,000 schoolchildren from diverse backgrounds, La Mêlée des Chœurs, has seen choirs singing each country’s anthem without accompanying music, but the response from fans was overwhelmingly negative.

“The feedback we got after eight games was that these anthems were disturbing, or surprising to our fans,” France 2023 chair Jacques Rivoal said.

“We are here to prioritise the fan experience, and we were quite concerned by this negative feedback. It is quite a sensitive question because for all the teams it’s a very important point.

“Today we have proposed new versions, simplified versions, while preserving the children’s voices, and these different versions will not be disturbing for the supporters, and will offer a more affirmative musical performance.”

Tournament director, Michel Poussau, said the competing nations would be consulted over the new versions.

“We understand it didn’t work, or it hasn’t worked as well as we hoped,” he admitted. “We can have anthems which will be closer to expectations, but will still have that touch from these kids, who I want to say have been amazing, have been working very hard, and who deserve to be part of this tournament.”

It has been a tough opening weekend for organisers. Fans in Marseille and Bordeaux struggled to access the venues the first time round.

“There were challenges in Marseille and Bordeaux but France 2023 has worked hard and in these two cases the second game was a lot better than the first one,” said Poussau.

“I think we should thank France 2023 for this and the people on the ground who had a limited amount of time. They have tried to address the challenges and find solutions.”

In Marseille there was the added challenge of explaining to fans why they could not have beer.

“We know there was no beer shortage, there was no lack of beer. It was a series of unfortunate difficulties. We are going to be working with France 2023, the venues and our partner Asahi — who have done an amazing job helping us address these challenges — to improve the situation,” Poussau said, trying to save face.

On the opening weekend, almost predictably, refereeing was thrust into the limelight.

“Refereeing is definitely one of the hardest jobs in the sport and our responsibility collectively is trying to make the referee’s life as easy as possible by always supporting them,” Poussau said.

“We know we have the best of the best in that refereeing team and I don’t think I should comment on decisions which are related to the pitch.”

French police, meanwhile, have launched an investigation after an Irish fan was allegedly abducted and gang-raped by three men while in Bordeaux on Saturday.

Local media reports said the 37-year-old woman was allegedly attacked around midnight on Saturday.

“On behalf of World Rugby, we are completely shocked and horrified by these events, and we will support the victim as much as we can,” said Poussau.

“It’s obviously hard to comment further because there is an investigation in place and that’s for the French authorities to deal with. But obviously, we were very shocked by what’s happened in Bordeaux.”