{"id":833302,"date":"2026-07-30T11:24:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T11:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/833302\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T11:24:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T11:24:08","slug":"world-rugby-threatens-to-suspend-world-cup-regulars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/833302\/","title":{"rendered":"World Rugby threatens to suspend World Cup regulars"},"content":{"rendered":"

Samoa<\/a>\u2019s governing body is on the verge of being suspended by World Rugby, according to media reports coming from the country.<\/p>\n

This follows an announcement from the Samoan government on Wednesday in which it was revealed it was withdrawing support for Rugby Samoa due to \u201cunresolved internal issues and division\u201d at the governing body.<\/p>\n

According to a Samoa Observer<\/a> report, World Rugby have informed the Samoan government that they have until Friday \u201cto accept a proposed review of its decision to withdraw recognition and financial support from Lakapi Samoa.<\/p>\n

\u201cFailure to accept the review or respond by the deadline could result in Samoa<\/a> being suspended from international rugby for four years.\u201d<\/p>\n

The government\u2019s decision was made on Wednesday night and comes a day before Rugby Samoa was scheduled to meet a visiting World Rugby delegation.<\/p>\n

The country\u2019s Prime Minister La\u2019aulialemalietoa Leuatea Schmidt broke the news via a press statement saying that all government funding and other assistance previously provided to Rugby Samoa would be withdrawn.<\/p>\n

In March, Schmidt revealed that his government would establish a rival union to govern the game in that country unless Rugby Samoa\u2019s board resigned.<\/p>\n

Loose Pass: \u2018Abhorrent\u2019 amount of referee abuse in New Zealand and concussion case enters \u2018unprecedented territory\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

In February, Schmidt expressed his unhappiness with the state of the game in Samoa and said the sport had been \u201cpoliticised\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re coming in to clear out all the politicians inside our rugby union,\u201d he said at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt this stage, our rugby is very impoverished\u2026 we are in the level that Samoa had never been before, because of what? Because of management.\u201d<\/p>\n

Want more from Planet Rugby? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list<\/a> for world-class coverage you can trust.<\/p>\n

The government\u2019s latest announcement comes after the official launch of the rival union, Samoa Rugby Football Union, was postponed days before it was set to take place.<\/p>\n

Although they are currently struggling and languishing in 20th position in World Rugby\u2019s official rankings, Samoa have developed a rich and proud rugby history over the years.<\/p>\n

Apart from missing out on the inaugural Rugby World Cup in 1987, Samoa have been regulars at the global showpiece since then.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Sam Cane exposes \u2018misconception\u2019 about Springboks\u2019 advantage and reveals the one trait Dave Rennie rewards against South African teams<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Samoa\u2019s governing body is on the verge of being suspended by World Rugby, according to media reports coming…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":833303,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,818,1182,44,760,5993,85],"class_list":["post-833302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-home-page","tag-internationals","tag-news","tag-rugby","tag-samoa","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/833302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=833302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/833302\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/833303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=833302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=833302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=833302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}