IRB on the defensive as Kiwis stick to their guns over Fijian army

It's not quite the equivalent of watching On The Waterfront without Marlon Brando strutting his stuff but there is a genuine risk that one the World Cup's favourite teams may pull out of rugby's quadrennial jamboree.

Fiji is considering withdrawing on political grounds after it emerged that New Zealand, which is hosting the 2011 event in September, has banned several Fijian players and administrators from entering the country.

Fiji has always endured a turbulent political scene which frequently sees the indigenous, predominantly Methodist Christian population pitted against the section of the South Sea Islands society which has Indian and Hindu heritage.

In 2006 Commodore Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama, known as "Frank", led a coup before setting up the military government which still controls the 332-plus islands that make up the country.

As a regional powerbroker, the New Zealand government banned anyone associated with the Fijian military from entering their country until human rights and democracy were restored. They are still waiting.

There are reckoned to be five players in Fiji's World Cup squad who have links to the military and several administrators, including the top dog. The chairman of the Fijian Rugby Union (FRU) is the recently-appointed Colonel Mosese Tikoitoga.

If the International Rugby Board wants Fiji to send their best 30 players to the World Cup - and, with access to all their European players, it seemed likely they would assemble their strongest-ever World Cup squad - then the argument goes that the New Zealanders should not stand in their way.

If popular support counts for anything then Fiji will attend. The islanders have twice qualified for the quarter-finals of the World Cup and are regular crowd pleasers.

They came within a whisker of beating Scotland in 2003 when, in one of Ian McGeechan's less inspired moments, Jim McLaren was asked to mark Rupeni Caucau - the best winger in the world (when he can be separated from the Krispy Kreme doughnuts).

Last time around in France, the islanders played in the match of the tournament, beating Wales at the death and causing coach Gareth Jenkins to lose his job.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of their government - and the Kiwis will claim that there is apartheid at work - Fiji still have the backing of most neutrals in this particular fight. IRB boss Mike Miller was in New Zealand last week looking for a way out of this unholy mess. He came away disappointed as Kiwi Prime Minister John Key reiterated his country's determination to maintain the ban as the only way of holding Fiji's feet to the flames. "We don't take our riding instructions from the IRB," Key said in one interview.His minister for foreign affairs (and the World Cup), Murray McCully, was even more strident in his opposition to any relaxation.

"I'm mystified," he said last week, "as to why we need to spell out a clearer message - banned means banned."

Of course when politics and sport collide nothing is ever quite that simple. The head of the Fijian Olympic Committee made the pertinent point that the Rugby World Cup cannot been seen simply as a New Zealand event but an IRB event, since the governing body owns the rights and everything else about the competition

The IRB's "meddling" has caused something approaching apoplexy in a host nation that is never slow to see themselves as put upon. They are still smarting from having half the 2003 RWC taken away at the last moment. They had to grovel to the game's bigwigs in Dublin to win the right to host this tournament. They expect to lose something like 20 million on the whole venture and now the IRB is questioning their government.

The problem is further complicated by the fact that the Fijian Rugby Union recently claimed that they lacked the funds to send a side, despite countless IRB millions being poured into the country in the last few years. The team is without a sponsor and the government money that was promised has yet to materialise.

Miller is declining to say anything in public lest it fan the flames of what is already an incendiary topic.

But he remains hopeful that Fiji will take their place at rugby's top table and rejects suggestions that their matches could be played elsewhere to circumvent the New Zealand ban.

He is right. Fiji will surely take their place come September but, even then, everyone will still be wondering why the IRB's main man waited until World Cup year to address a problem that has existed since 2006.