Tuesday 7 November 2017 16:34, UK
Last week, the Rugby World Cup Board recommended the World Rugby Council award the tournament to South Africa after a technical report placed it ahead of rival bidders France and Ireland on an overall score across a range of criteria.
That prompted a furious response from Bernard Laporte, the president of the French Rugby Federation, who said the organisation would be writing to World Rugby chairman Bill Beaumont seeking a correction over what they said were a series of inaccuracies, including the quality of stadiums and hotels.
World Rugby responded to Laporte's initial comments last week by saying they were "unfounded and inaccurate", insisting it had implemented a "transparent' objective' professional and robust host selection process".
Ireland are bidding to be the main hosts for the first time, although they did stage matches as part of the 1991 and 1999 editions.
Ireland bid chief Dick Spring has criticised a "skewed" scoring system that would "preclude" many potential new bidders from staging a Rugby World Cup.
South African Rugby chief executive Jurie Roux weighed into the simmering row by saying "we hope that sanity will prevail because an independent process is there for a very specific reason - to keep it independent".
The World Cup bid will be one of the hot topics on the Offload on Wednesday night as CEO of World Rugby Brett Gosper will be our special guest.
If you have any questions to put to Brett Gosper, please tweet us @SkySportsRugby using #AskGosper
The World Rugby Council will make the final decision in London on November 15.
Watch the Offload, live on the Sky Sports Facebook page, Wednesday, from 7pm or catch it on Sky Sports Action, 9.30pm, Wednesday
