As England was the host nation for the tournament, they should have been the only country who gained any home advantage for matches in the tournament; however this was not the case. Thirteen stadiums were used throughout the tournament, twelve of which were in England itself and the other stadium was the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, Wales; home of the Welsh rugby national team. The Cardiff Stadium hosted 8 matches throughout the Rugby World Cup with Wales allowed home advantage in two of their five matches. I believe the decision by the Rugby World Cup Committee to allow Wales’ home advantage showed a lack of respect to their opposing teams Uruguay and Fiji.
Both teams would be considered as the two weakest teams within the Welsh group. This in rugby terms is known as tier two nations. This shows that there is still a massive divide between the tier one nations and the tier two nations. The Rugby World Cup Committee has now made the divide between the two tiers even bigger by giving Wales’ home advantage during these two games. If the Rugby World Cup Committee were happy to give Wales’ home advantage against the undocumented tier two nations why not allow them play Australia and England in Cardiff too? It really does not make sense at all. Throughout the rest of this blog, I will investigate how much of an advantage is gained by host countries playing in their own stadiums by analysing data from previous seven World Cups prior to England 2015.