One of the stars of this World Cup is a thin, shy billionaire with an astonishing collection of Picassos, flamingos and zebras.

He may, possibly, show up in his helicopter before the tournament is over — he comes with little forewarning — and his name is Bidzina Ivanishvili.

In his glass-and-steel fortress in the mountains overlooking Tbilisi, Georgia, the self-made Ivanishvili is his country’s richest man and former prime minister. On his wall hangs the Dora Maar with Cat. It’s a copy; the real one, bought from Sotheby’s for £60million, is stashed away in London.

Georgia players celebrate after beating Tonga, the biggest win in their country's Rugby World Cup history

Former Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili has bankrolled the Georgian rugby team

Fifty-nine and a father of four, including two albino sons, one of whom, Bera, is a rapper, Ivanishvili regularly does yoga and has just one meal a day.

His parsimonious eating habits are conspicuously outstripped by the generosity of his philanthropy.

He is said to send £80 a month to every person in his home village of Chorvila and £1,200 plus wedding costs if anyone there gets married.

He funded the building of Tbilisi’s largest cathedral, is planning to rehouse the Tbilisi zoo that was swept away by the recent floods, and pays salaries to many hundreds of actors and ballerinas.

More relevant to us, he is the sugar daddy of Georgian rugby. Using his personal fortune, Ivanishvili has had built two state-of-the-art academies in Tbilisi and Kutaisi. In all, 23 facilities will be built by 2017, when the country hosts the World Under 20 Championship.

So nobody could have been prouder than Ivanishvili when Georgia beat Tonga 17-10 in their opening Pool C match, having beaten only Romania and Namibia in previous World Cups.

Their target, according to head coach Milton Haig, is to finish third in the group — supposedly behind New Zealand and Argentina.

Mamuka Gorgodze bundles the ball over the line against Tonga, as Georgia started their World Cup brilliantly

Giorgi Tkhilaishvilli dives over to score as his side produced a magnificent display to win last week

The Georgians celebrate wildly, and their target of finishing at least third in the group is within reach now

‘Third means we automatically qualify for the next tournament in Japan. We want to be a top-10 nation inside five years.’

Georgia face Argentina at Gloucester on Friday, offering them a chance to outrun their own timetable and make the knock-out stages.

As usual the players will huddle in the dressing room, lock arms and say the Lord’s Prayer. An icon of St George or the Virgin Mary will be on display. Some will scribble a cross on their wrist strapping.

They are predominantly a Christian Orthodox nation of four million people, situated at the crossroads of Europe and Asia and surrounded by Islamic neighbours.

Rugby has officially been played in Georgia for 56 years. However, they have been running with balls long before William Webb Ellis ran off with the idea.

Gorgodze is the leader of the Georgian squad, and one of the majority of them playing club rugby in France

The big back row, nicknamed Gordgodzilla, takes the ball in training ahead of the Argentina clash

WATCHING BRIEF Argentina vs Georgia Kick-off: 4.45pm at Kingsholm Stadium. TV: LIVE on ITV4 from 4.15pm. Referee: JP Doyle (England) Advertisement

The team’s nickname — the Lelos — comes from Lelo-burti, or Lelo-ball, an ancient, free-for-all folk game. Still played in the western part of the country, its roots are pagan: the ball symbolised the sun, one of the seven celestial bodies worshipped in medieval times.

Lelo-ball was adopted by the Orthodox Church, whose priests blessed the red leather ball — filled with local wine — and threw it to the players at Easter.

Village against village, or husbands against bachelors, or tribe against tribe, the aim was to carry the ball to a set place — the Lelo. The word still means try.

Today 70 per cent of the squad, led by Mamuka Gorgodze of Toulon, earn their living in France.

Their 18-year-old scrum-half Vasil Lobzhanidze is the youngest player in the tournament’s history. For now at least, he is still playing in Georgia.

Vasil Lobzhanidze, aged just 18, is the youngest ever player to play at a Rugby World Cup

The teenage scrum half is just one of an emerging generation of talent, bankrolled by the former Prime Minister

‘He is just the tip of the iceberg — one of a number of players now prepared in the modern way,’ said former Scotland and Georgia head coach Richie Dixon, sitting in the team’s Gloucester hotel.

Now World Rugby’s high performance consultant looking after Georgia and Romania, Dixon says the sport’s governing body should be saluted for their development of tier two nations — the likes of Fiji, Japan, Tonga, USA and Canada — by funding events such as the Tbilisi Cup, which ensures that such teams play each other regularly.

Georgia have won the ‘Six Nations B’ — the European Nations Cup — for the last five years and their aim is to join the Six Nations.