World Rugby urged to intervene after Owen Farrell’s red card was overturned

World Rugby has come under pressure to act after Owen Farrell’s red card against Wales was overturned in a decision that has caused uproar across the game.

Farrell was sent off in the second half of Saturday’s 19-17 victory at Twickenham after his yellow card for a shoulder-led tackle to the head of Taine Basham was upgraded to a red by the bunker review system.

While the England captain was expected to face a ban that would rule him out of the start of the World Cup, a disciplinary hearing instead concluded that the offence was worthy of a sin-binning only, clearing him to play.

Six Nations, who oversee the warm-up fixtures, have a policy of not publishing written judgements, but are facing calls to make the detailed reasoning behind the independent panel’s decision public.

They have the power to appeal the verdict and so do World Rugby, who will examine the report before making a decision.

Progressive Rugby, a player welfare lobby group, believe the sport’s global governing body must intervene.

“World Rugby must emerge from its corporate bubble of stakeholder management and delegated responsibility to bare its teeth,” Progressive Rugby said on Twitter.

“For it to demonstrate it WON’T stand still on player welfare, that it IS the game’s number one priority and that they won’t tolerate being undermined.”

A joke. Once more.

— Agustín Pichot (@AP9_) August 15, 2023

The all-Australian panel came to its verdict after finding that Basham’s direction of travel was altered by an attempted tackle by Jamie George just before Farrell made his challenge.

One of the questions arising from the case which would be clarified in the written judgement is why this was used as mitigation when World Rugby’s guidelines state mitigation does