ENGLAND’S tattooed stars will have to cover up at next year’s World Cup — so the Japanese locals don’t mistake them for Yakuza gangsters.
Players like Courtney Lawes, Jack Nowell, Joe Marler and Manu Tuilagi are all covered in ink, with body art down their arms and across their torsos.
But with a year exactly to the big kick-off, tournament chiefs have warned players to take note, as locals believe people with body art belong to organised crime gangs.
“We will make people aware, around the facilities players will use in Japan, that people with tattoos in a Rugby World Cup context are not part of the Yakuza, the Japanese mafia,” Japan 2019 chief Alan Gilpin said.
“That’s where the issue comes from. We have done a lot in the last year or so with the teams to get them to understand that.
“If they are using a public pool, they will have to cover up. Players will also have to wear different trainers indoors and outdoors. It will all be self-policing.
“We won’t force any teams to cover up but they will want to because they want to be seen to be respecting the culture. Whether it is Scotland, Ireland, Wales or Italy, who have all been there recently, they all get it.”
As well as preparing for the cultural change teams will also have to be on red alert in a country that is hit by a whopping 480 earthquakes a year.
Just this month Japan was hit by its strongest typhoon for 25 years.
Then days later a devastating earthquake, hitting 6.7 on the Richter scale, killed 39 people.
Sapporo, where England begin open their Pool C charge against Tonga on September 22, was also hit.
So contingency plans are already in place if a natural disaster were to hit during the tournament.
Gilpin added: “It’s a real hot topic for us right now.
“Teams will be arriving next year at a time when this year Japan has experienced a pretty significant typhoon and earthquake.
“We are planning right through from what happens if a team hotel or training venue is lost to what happens if one or more match venues are lost. We are working through all these scenarios.
“It’s a complex piece and something we would do for every tournament, but this one has a heightened sense of realism to it. We have to take it seriously.
“But there’s also a heightened sense of comfort that Japan deals with these issues all the time. It’s not as though we’re dealing with a one-off here. As they very calmly tell us, 480 earthquakes a year.
“Their venues and hotels are built to withstand incredible adverse conditions, so in some respects they are less affected.
“What you tend to see in Japan is generally it’s older buildings and structures that are affected when they have either earthquakes or typhoons.”
Along with the England team, New Zealand and Australia will also go out of their way to respect the Japanese culture by covering up their tattoos.
The World Cup will be played in Japan for the first time in 2019.
This article originally appeared on The Sun and was reproduced with permission.
