World Rugby secretly modified his bye-law about his Council members

Between December 5, 2019 and February 26. 2020, the most important bye-law for the gouvernance of World Rugby have been changed without any notice. 

Bye-Law 9 is about the World Rugby Council. The Council decides everything matters in international rugby. The Council vote to elect the president and vice-president, it choose the host of money making Rugby World Cups, but also the host of plenty of tournaments around the world. it also decides the format of tournaments, it can sanction World Rugby members. The Council basically make what international rugby looks like. Last year Gus Pichot's Nations Championship was abandoned because council didn't want it.

Thanks to Google cache of the modified web page, we can easily see every changes made since December 5.

9.1 didn't changed.

9.2 Applying to join Council (c) was modified to be in line with new 9.3

The former version was :

The current version is :

New version adds a new (ii) allowing the former members of the Council to come back to it qualifying to only the last men's Rugby World Cup. Former version clearly states every members need to qualify for the last two men's RWC.

9.2 (d) was entirely modified.

The former version was :

The current version is :

The former version was key one. It basically says members who failed to qualify for the last RWC will be excluded from the Council in January following RWC.
Romania must have been excluded from the council ceasing to satisfy this criteria.

9.3 is a brand new paragraph

It creates a new concept of "Ceasing to fulfill criteria". It was only made to protect the current Council members to lost their seat failing to qualify for a RWC.
The paragraph only benefits Romania allowing Alin Petrache to save his seat.
In the future, this article will have a lot of consequences. It means every nations which failed to qualify for a RWC will continue to have power at the Council. For example, if Italy weren't able to qualify they will still have three seats during the next four years.
From now current members will have to miss two consecutive men's Rugby World Cup to lost seats at the Council.
Today it saves Alin Petrache's seat and probably satisfies current Rugby Europe representative Romanian Octavian Morariu. Two voters for the next election of president in May 2020.
According (c), Romania will still have a representative at the Council until December 31st, 2023, until they failed to qualify for two consecutive RWC.

The discretion about this major change was obviously to avoid any reaction. World Rugby just changed his own regulations in the last hour to allow an old member to keep privileges. That won't help World Rugby to improve his democratic reputation.

Former version of bye-law 9