World Rugby boss Brett Gosper has landed himself in hot water with a post on Twitter that said England failing to reach the World Cup quarter-finals would be "not the words we want to hear".
But the Australian World Rugby chief executive says his comment has been "over-interpreted" into partisanship.
Gosper drew quizzical responses from Wales when tweeting: "England fail to exit pool in World Cup?...Not the words we want to hear during #RWC2015".
England must battle it out with Wales and Australia for the two quarter-final places up for grabs in World Cup Pool A, with one major nation set for an early exit.
Wales coach Warren Gatland replied by saying Gosper "probably doesn't need to be doing that".
Gosper has moved to downplay his social media post, conceding he had left his words open to misinterpretation.
"I think it was slightly over-interpreted, some people had some fun with it," Gosper said.
"The simple message was that it's always nice for a country to do well in a tournament that they are organising, it was nothing beyond that.
"This tournament is already going to be a huge success in terms of ticketing demand across the programs, but only time will tell to see how well they do, and it's entirely down to them how they perform."
Gosper stressed that the sporting body was "totally neutral".
"It's up to each team to do what they can to get where they want to get in this tournament, and that's the way it should be.
"The vast majority of people have understood the spirit, but you can analyse a tweet a bit, and maybe I left myself open to a bit of interpretation and that's a bit of pity."
Gosper moved to clarify his twitter comments at Tuesday's Sport Industry Breakfast Club, after Wales boss Gatland took exception.
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