Why World Rugby should investigate Italy eligibility revelations

Martin Castrogiovanni is one of 8 former Italian players to suggest
  in interviews his link to Italy was only via great-grandparent

This month question marks arose over the eligbility of at least 8 former Italy internationals. The biggest name among them was Martin Castrogiovanni, a legendary figure at tighthead for the Azzurri who won 119 caps and played across four RWCs. The others were Gonzalo Canale, Santiago Dellape, Ramiro Pez, Gonzalo Garcia, Carlo del Fava, Luciano Orquera, and Alberto di Bernardo (in addition to that there were also further cases in Italy A bringing the total of question marks up to double figures).

The error in all these cases was the same. In 2018 Belgium were found to have fielded half a dozen players who mistakenly confused having citizenship via great-grandparents with being eligible which they were not. Italy basically seem to have done the same thing repeatedly over the first decade and a half of the 21st century.

It should be noted that, whilst interviews seem suggest the likelihood (unless more information proves otherwise) is that at least some of these players were probably not eligible, disappointingly we will probably never know for 100% certain sure as World Rugby and FIR have refused to show any interest.

World Rugby's reaction has been shared among a few similarly uncurious "Tier 1" fans (by contrast fans of teams who were more effected such as Spain seem very interested). After all the players are from the previous generation and now retired. So why care?

There are in fact quite a number of reasons this issue is worth World Rugby investigating more ....

Firstly just for the pure interest in knowing more about rugby history.

Between them these players won 459 caps for Italy. All but one of them (di Bernardo) had substantial 40+ cap international careers. So together they were a considerable part of this Argentine infused era of Italian rugby. If the players were confirmed not eligible it would add context to this period of Italian rugby history and we would reflect on it slightly differently. An era that was not only heavily reliant on Argentines for competitiveness, but also through weak appliance of eligibility laws.

It would be interesting to know if these allegations are true or not just for the sake of knowledge. Even if time has passed so nothing can be done. Just as somewhat similarly it would be interesting to know if any truth to the whispers South African players were doping in 1995 (or any other time). Even if nothing can be done now. This stuff is interesting to know and relevant to how we look back on rugby history. Nobody should want the issue left at just question marks.

Secondly if players were not eligible it impacted several "Tier 2" nations.

In 2002 Castrogiovanni and Dellape both played in RWC qualifiers. This should have disqualified Italy (as it did Russia in the same set of qualifiers) and seen Spain reach the RWC in their place. In 2006 Pez and Del Fava also both played RWC qualifiers. This also should have disqualified Italy and seen Portugal reach the RWC in their place (with Russia then facing Uruguay in the Repechage playoff).

Qualifying to the RWC is a big deal for these nations. The failure to catch it at the time cost 60 players a possibly once in a career chance to play at the sport's biggest event. Furthermore Italy also fielded the players at the tournaments themselves which after 2007 saw them auto-qualify through third place in their pool. So this system means that Italy still benefit from those non-eligible players through having boosted seeding and better pool draws at RWCs continuing right to today.

"Tier 2" sides missed RWCs and possibly
on historic wins due to Italy's alleged
ineligible players all escaping notice

Obviously you can't retroactively go back in time and disqualify a nation. But those nations effected still deserve to know the truth, and there is a case they should even get some small compensation (maybe this could come from Italy paying the same fines for eligibility mistakes that Spain had to pay).

Also in this period there were some close games between Italy and "Tier 2" nations which possibly cost some historic wins. At the 2007 RWC for instance, in a close match vs Romania decided by just 6 points, one of Italy's tries came from Pez kicking through for Dellape to score (both players maybe ineligible). In 2003 they also beat Canada by just 5 points with ineligible players. In the warm up before that tournament they also had possibly four ineligible players in the starting XV when they beat Georgia by 9 points.

Thirdly plenty of Italian players impacted too.

Whilst Italy's level as a national team in this era benefited from all these players. It did not benefit all the dozen or so Italian players who missed out hundreds of caps on between them. For some of those players representing Italy would have been a childhood dream lost. Again it can't be fixed now, but those players still all deserve to know the truth of whether or not they were denied their place rightly.

Also another interesting counterfactual to consider. It is widely considered the Argentine boost to Italy in the era of roughly 2003-2013 covered up the fact their homegrown youth teams were performing poorly and producing relatively few players. Something that later got badly exposed as this generation declined or retired and there were fewer Argentines to call upon (partly thanks to Argentina starting to mass cap all their young players in South American tournaments throughout the 2010s).

In recent times Italy has fixed their weak youth setup and this year was their strongest U20 side yet. It will not happen overnight but in longer term there is a bright future for Italian rugby. If they had not had so many Argentines in the previous era though would have they been forced to address this earlier?

Fourthly World Rugby need to examine how this went so unnoticed.

Some of these cases were not particularly hidden. Carlo del Fava even stated his father and grandfather were both born in South Africa and his link to Italy only comes via great-grandfather on the official Six Nations website of all places!

Spain got exposed by a level of eligibility
scrutiny from rival nations that does not
appear to exist elsewhere in rugby

This in complete contrast to the recent case with Spain, who only saw Gavin van den Berg exposed after a Russian sleuth browsed for two years worth of Facebook posts (and Spanish fans then in turn searched through three years of Jason Tomane's Instagram feed to find an accusation which was later found to be okay with an exemption). If that level of Russian sleuthing existed in 2006 it might have got them to the World Cup ....

But why does it appear the only serious scrutiny to the eligibility status of players come from the rivalries of REC nations engaged in fiercely contested RWC qualifying process? Should not the sport's governing body start to take more responsibility itself and be a bit more thorough in its checking process to stop these mistakes ever happening in the first place?

It would not surprise in the least if there have been several more instances of mistakes in eligibility that have escaped any scrutiny. This includes possibly some big name players in "Tier 1". World Rugby owes it to the sport to investigate how and why (if the allegations are confirmed true) there was such a failure in their eligibility checks that went unnoticed across so many years and to stop it happening again.