New Zealand Rugby CEO Steve Tew says World Rugby’s decision to hand France the hosting rights for the 2023 World Cup is a case of ‘democracy in action’.

Despite the fact that South Africa had been previously identified as the ‘preferred candidate’, France received the majority vote during the final ballot process conducted by the World Rugby Council on Wednesday.

Tew suggested the final decision may look ‘odd’, but that there was always the chance that the initial evaluation report would not influence the end result.

‘In the end, we live in a democracy and democracies do funny things sometimes,’ he told Radio New Zealand.

‘In this case it’s produced a result that people weren’t expecting. I guess it does look odd and people can speculate around that as much as they want.’

New Zealand had thrown its support behind South Africa’s World Cup bid, and voted for its Sanzaar partner in both rounds of the bid process.

Photo: Fiona Goodall/Getty Images