After a chorus of criticism, the organisers of the men’s Rugby World Cup in France have bowed to pressure and promised to re-record the pre-match national anthems which they said fans found “disturbing”.
A project involving 7,000 schoolchildren from diverse backgrounds, La Mêlée des Chœurs, has seen choirs singing each country’s anthem without accompanying music, but the response from inside the stadiums was overwhelmingly negative.
Problems surfaced at the opening match in Paris on Friday, when France took on New Zealand. La Marseillaise was mangled as the home nation’s players appeared to be badly out of sync and out of tune with the schoolchildren singing along in canon. The problems deepened over the seven further matches of the opening weekend, including a “butchering” of God Save the King before England played Argentina.
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