According to this and other eyewitness reports, the attempt to ‘elect’ a new IRB chairman last month descended into pure farce, with the vote now postponed until December.

The shenanigans were caused because the current chairman, Bernard Lapasset, who had apparently agreed to hand over to Bill Beaumont after one term in office, changed his mind. This infuriated Beaumont to the point that the election meeting descended into a rugby match of its own. The ridiculous behaviour of some of the delegates prompted the highly respected Welsh representative Gerald Davies to call out: “Gentlemen, take a look at yourselves. This is not the way to behave.”

If this is the way the IRB is run at the very highest levels, I fear for the future of the global game. Lapasset, who must take some credit for pushing to get Rugby Sevens included as an Olympic sport, has also been accused of offering Tier Two rugby nations more voting rights and funding in exchange for their votes. The Tier two nations should get more voting rights, but not in exchange for favours to the chairman.

I know that politics is an integral part of the way any organisation is run, but come on, this is just ridiculous. These people are meant to love rugby. Do they? I have to wonder. Either way you look at it – whether Lapasset retains his position or Beaumont takes over – global rugby will be the loser. I can’t read the minds of the two gentlemen in question, but both seem to be in the race simply for power, not to radically change the game and make it more international.

The election of the IRB chairman is a stitch-up anyway as it overwhelmingly favours the Tier One rugby nations who, between them, control over 60% of the votes. They are hardly going to vote for someone from a Tier Two nation, are they? Someone who may, let’s say, elect to hold more rugby world cups in developing rugby nations, or open up the Six Nations tournament to the likes of Georgia or Romania. I don’t think so. The Tier One nations hold all the power and reap all the benefits, so why would they want to change anything? As the English idiom goes, turkeys don’t vote for Christmas.

The whole process, from the way the voting rights are divided to the way the chairman is elected, needs to be completely overhauled to make it more democratic and more transparent. Otherwise rugby will forever remain an exclusive club for the ‘old’ rugby nations.

What do we want? Revolution! When do we want it? Now!