New World Rugby chairman Brett Robinson has outlined his urgent mission to tackle the sport’s acute financial crisis, after narrowly winning the vote to succeed Sir Bill Beaumont.

The former Australian flanker became the world governing body’s first elected figurehead from the southern hemisphere, edging out former France captain Abdelatif Benazzi 27-25 in the second round of voting.

As expected, the race turned into a duel when Italian candidate Andrea Rinaldo was eliminated after receiving only nine votes in the first round, compared to 22 for Robinson and 21 for Benazzi.

After going through a tense and close vote in a luxury hotel in the Irish capital, the 54-year-old winner spoke of his pride and pressing priorities.

“It is a great privilege and honor to be elected president of World Rugby,” Robinson said. “I was honored to be welcomed, but to see the game come out and support me is fabulous.

“The work begins today. There is a list of things that the (World Rugby) Board expects from me, having elected me, and I need to start looking at them in more detail.

Brett Robinson completes competition to become new World Rugby president

Robinson (second from right) will replace the outgoing Sir Bill Beaumont (second from left) in this role

The result was a disappointment for former French star Abdelatif Benazzi who was hoping to win

“I was very clear before the election that the financial viability of our member unions is at a critical point and so we must find ways, collectively, to resolve this problem. I’ve been very clear about the need to grow the game, whilst ensuring our core markets are in the right place.

“I have been clear on the competitions that matter to us: the Nations Championship is starting, women’s football continues to develop and our platform around Sevens is reset after the Olympic Games. I have also been very clear on the listen to our fans.

“There’s not enough ball in play, too many senseless kicks and we don’t encourage teams to attack. Finally, World Rugby as an organization has been in the professional era for around 30 years.

“Now we have so much to think about as an organization, what our priorities are and how we can get fit, lean and ready to deliver on our promises.”

Early in the election, the impression was that Robinson was a status quo candidate while Benazzi was more focused on overseeing an era of global expansion.

Asked if his focus was on strengthening the game’s major federations and nations rather than targeting new markets, Robinson added: “We’ve done a great job over the last few months bringing together our major federations.

“There are revenue and cost levers we can play with. We held a workshop four weeks ago, and last night the CEOs and presidents of the major unions met to follow up on that workshop. We’re getting into the details of these things now.

It was not only a satisfying result for Australia, it also represented a perfect result for the RFU, who maintained England’s influence at the top of World Rugby.

Robinson drew attention to the “reset” of the Rugby Sevens platform after the Olympics.

He also pledged to help women’s football as its popularity “continues to grow”.

This result is good news for the RFU which maintains English influence at the top of rugby.

Former England full-back Jonathan Webb will serve as vice-chairman after being elected to the board, after the RFU strongly and openly supported Robinson’s campaign.

Benazzi was confident of victory in the presidential election and as he hurried out of the hotel after his crushing defeat, he lamented Rugby Africa’s decision to cast its two votes in favor of Robinson.

The Moroccan-born candidate obviously expected to be supported by the region whose main country, South Africa, strongly supported Benazzi’s candidacy for the leading role.

Shortly after voting ended, Rugby Africa president Herbert Mensah – a Ghanaian businessman and sports administrator – could be seen posing for selfies with Robinson. It emerged that Mensah had been elected to the new board.

Another man who hoped to win one of those coveted seats at the top was former Argentina captain Agustin Pichot, who narrowly lost the previous president’s election to Beaumont in 2020. However, the popular Pumas legend did not was not up to the task, just like the president of Rugby Sud. America, Sebastian Pineyrua.