Rugby World Cup Organizers Add Exeter To Possible Venues List

Rugby World Cup organizers have added club side Exeter Chiefs to the list of possible venues for the '15 tournament in England, "helping allay concerns that the showpiece event" would be held predominantly in football stadiums, according to Martyn Herman of REUTERS. Exeter's Sandy Park stadium "joins a list which includes Wembley, Old Trafford, Newcastle United's St James' Park and Leeds United's Elland Road." Eighteen venues are now on the list "but only one other, Gloucester's Kingsholm ground, hosts regular club rugby." Bristol City's footbll stadium, on the original list, is set to undergo redevelopment which will "prove challenging for the staging of matches in autumn 2015." Exeter's possible inclusion "will be unlikely to placate" England's best-supported club side Leicester Tigers whose 24,000-capacity Welford Road ground was overlooked (REUTERS, 3/4).