World Rugby chief tells Dublin meeting he'll stand down to focus on Olympic goal

Bernard Lapasset wants to spearhead a Paris bid for the 2024 Games.

BERNARD LAPASSET WILL stand down as the head of rugby union’s governing body this year to concentrate on leading the Paris bid to secure the 2024 Olympics, World Rugby said today.

The 68-year-old Frenchman announced his decision not to stand for a new term as chairman at a World Rugby executive meeting in Dublin today.

Lapasset was chief organiser of the 2007 Rugby World Cup in France, played a lead role in getting rugby sevens into the Rio Olympics, and leaves rugby with record revenues.

He is already co-president of the latest Paris campaign to get the Olympics. It is battling with Budapest, Los Angeles and Rome for the 2024 Games.

The International Olympic Committee is to make a decision in mid-2017.

World Rugby will hold an election for a new chairman in May. Nominations for the new leader have to be presented by 12 March with Bill Beaumont, head of the English Rugby Union, touted as a likely candidate.

“After careful consideration I have taken the decision not to seek a further term of office as chairman of World Rugby,” Lapasset, who has headed the governing body since 2008, told the World Rugby executive.

“Rugby has never been healthier and I am so proud of what we have achieved in growing the game around the globe, securing rugby sevens on the Olympic programme, staging wonderful tournaments, including Rugby World Cup 2015, taking the women’s game to new levels and properly addressing key issues such as governance and player welfare.”

Lapasset said he would now devote himself to the Paris bid.

“We are now entering into the heart of the campaign and nothing would give me greater pleasure than bringing the Games back to Paris ‎for a real centenary celebration of Olympism in 2024.”

The French capital last staged the Olympics in 1924.