Kiwis pull out of World Cup with a "large portion" of players unwilling to be vaccinated
New Zealand Rugby League CEO Greg Peters has detailed why the Kiwis pulled out of the upcoming World Cup.
News broke on Wednesday that both Australia and New Zealand had pulled out of the tournament – which was set to run in the UK from October – due to current COVID uncertainty.
Joining SENZ Breakfast with Baz and Izzy, Peters said it was the “only right call” the governing body would make.
“It’s a massive call for us, it’s really disappointing for players and fans, and we get that,” Peters said.
“At the end of the day, it’s the only right call that we could make given everything we had in front of us and the knowledge we have about protocols and biosecurity measures they had in the UK.
“Also, the logistical nightmare of returning 500 players from the northern hemisphere to Australasia at the end of the tournament.”
With the UK recently hosting the Euros and other sporting events, Peters was asked why they weren’t confident enough to commit to the tournament.
“Our paramount concern and the only consideration for us was how can we keep our people safe on the ground in the UK,” Peters explained.
“People have said the All Blacks are going there, the Wallabies are going there and they’ve had the Euros, but this is a starkly different set of circumstances.
“It’s a five-week tournament with 31 teams in total on the ground, and a large proportion of those are not vaccinated, for their own personal choice or the slowness of the vaccine program in both Australia and New Zealand.
“When you see cases explode in the UK, they’ve been up 33 per cent in the last week, we just can’t put our people in that environment.”
Peters revealed that one stumbling block was that a “large portion” of the playing group aren’t willing to be vaccinated at this stage.
“We’ve been speaking to them (the players) regularly as you’d expect,” he said.
“There’s a good deal of concern amongst all our player groups.
“And a large portion of our player group for whatever reason don’t want to take the vaccine, or are thinking about not taking the vaccine.
“So that’s a massive consideration for us.
“If you take a chunk of the players out, we’d have a weakened side as well.”
“It’s not being safe in our view.”
Organisers are now planning on their next move, with one option being to hold the tournament in 2022.
