Welford Road fails to make the cut for the list of stadiums for the 2015 Rugby World Cup

Tournament organisers have confirmed that Welford Road, home of the Leicester Tigers, will not be hosting matches at the 2015 World Cup.

Andy Cosslett, England Rugby 2015 chairman, said: "Our vision for Rugby World Cup 2015 is to ensure that we take this prestigious tournament to as many parts of the country as possible, and we believe that the geographical spread of venues selected will enable us to maximise the reach of the tournament. "We are confident that, with the venues selected, we will be able to reach our target of having up to 2.9 million tickets available, opening up the tournament to more people than ever before. "In addition, we will be selecting further venues for training and team base camps that will ensure that the rugby community is at the very heart of Rugby World Cup 2015. "We will now continue to work extremely closely with the venues, cities and stakeholders, including the Premier League and Football League, to plan the scheduling of matches and city hosting programmes to select a final list of up to 12 venues, which will be agreed by the early part of next year. "The process of choosing the long list of venues was very competitive and we would like to thank the venues and cities who we have met for their full co-operation, including the venues not selected, all of whom provided us with their fulsome assistance and information required to make our selection." Leicester chairman Peter Tom criticised the decision to scrap Welford Road from the short-list, saying: "We are hugely disappointed to learn that Welford Road will not play a part in England's hosting of the Rugby World Cup in 2015. "Welford Road has hosted many, many major occasions over the years, including visits from South Africa, Australia and Argentina national teams in recent seasons. "It is home to the best-supported and most successful club in the history of the professional game in this country and, as such, we believe it is worthy of Rugby World Cup status."