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“They think big,” confirms Gosper. “In their minds they think two or three World Cups away is possible. We have said you have to be competitive as a nation and you have to have an interest in the volume to sell around two million tickets.

“It would be great for strategic reasons for them to host it, but it also has to be right for the commercial look and feel of the tournament.

“Then we are in the process of discussing a Masters Sevens tournament, which could be held as early as this year. It would be the top eight of the World Series finishers competing for the highest ever prize money we have seen in sevens – like the Barclays ATP Tournament in tennis.

“In order to be seen as a premier event it needs something specific, and prize money would seem to be a good way of doing that.”

The prize money will come from AliSports, whose parent company turned over $14.8 billion last year. It is expected to put rugby front and centre of its TV and digital platforms as it takes advantage of the Chinese government’s decision to relax state control of sports in late 2015, having already invested in FIFA’s Club World Cup, the NFL and boxing.

There is confidence the interest is there, as evidenced by the fact 44 million people in China watched sevens at the Rio Olympics — double the number in the UK and second only to the United States worldwide.

The scope of the project has never been seen in rugby before, but the will of the Chinese government to make it happen means those involved are confident of success, with a professional sevens and XVs league to start almost from scratch, either at the end of this year or the start of next.