A row that threatens to deprive New Zealand of jointly hosting next year's World Cup reached the New Zealand cabinet table on Monday, with a minister accusing co-host Australia of signing an agreement it cannot keep.

The International Rugby Board last week invited Australia to be sole host of the prestige event, which drew a television audience of three billion in 214 countries when last held in 1999.

It said New Zealand rugby officials had failed to meet a deadline to agree to IRB requirements for holding matches in the tournament in October-November 2003.

The New Zealand Rugby Football Union (NZRFU) said it would not sign because it could not guarantee to meet IRB requirements to ban all advertising from stadiums where the games are held, and a 500-metre radius around them.

New Zealand officials said advertisements in the grounds, including sponsored corporate boxes, were subject to long-term contracts which could not be broken.

Defending the NZRFU position, Prime Minister Helen Clark told a news conference after the cabinet meeting, "In this country, to sign a contract knowing that you can't carry it out, is against the law."

And her minister for sport, Trevor Mallard, who briefed the cabinet on the situation, said, "We also know that in Australia, the Australian Rugby Union is not able to deliver as well - but they appear to have entered into the sort of undertakings which the NZRFU haven't."

New Zealand newspapers have quoted the Australian union's chief executive John O'Neill, who has signed the IRB agreement to host the cup, as saying it also could not deliver 100 per cent so-called "clean grounds" free of advertising material.

Mallard said the government had asked the solicitor general for a legal opinion on the New Zealand rugby officials' stand, which would be passed on to the IRB.

Clark said hosting the cup was important to the national economy because it would be a "fantastic bonus" to the tourism industry.

Some reports have estimated it would be worth hundreds of millions of dollars to the economy. - Sapa-DPA