World Rugby have announced there will be a new international league competition included in a global calendar from 2026, with a 24-team World Cup given the green light from the following year.
The biennial tournament will involve 24 teams too, split into two divisions of 12 with promotion and relegation between the two tiers to be introduced from 2030.
Matches will take place in the July and November international windows, in addition to existing tournaments such as the Six Nations and Rugby Championship.
The top tier will contain the teams within those competitions, as well as two others who are as yet unnamed but likely to be Japan and Fiji – the other two nations sitting in the world's top 12 who have each made one World Cup quarter-final since 2019.
World Rugby chairman Sir Bill Beaumont said: “It is fitting that we finish Rugby World Cup 2023, the sport's greatest celebration of togetherness, with the sport's greatest feat of togetherness.
“Agreement on the men's and women's global calendars and their content is the most significant development in the sport since the game went professional. An historic moment for our sport that sets us up collectively for success.
“We now look forward to an exciting new era for our sport commencing in 2026. An era that will bring certainty and opportunity for all.
“An era that will support the many, not the few, and an era that will supercharge the development of the sport beyond its traditional and often self-imposed boundaries. I would like to thank all my colleagues for their spirit of collaboration. Today, we have achieved something special.”
The competition will take place in alternate years, with the breaks made up by the British and Irish Lions Tour and Rugby World Cup.
As seen above, the news has not been welcome by all. Indeed while the Mail Online reports that although the decision just about passed in the World Rugby council by 41 votes to 10 (requiring 75 per cent of the vote and therefore 39 votes), 31 of these votes are controlled by existing Six Nations and Rugby Championship teams.
Japan and Fiji will not join the Rugby Championship, rather will compete in an expanded Pacific Nations Cup with four teams expected to be in the second tier: Samoa, Tonga, United States and Canada. How this affects Japan and Fiji's standing in the top tier, and the latter four nations' standing in the second tier has yet to be explained.
Criticism has also emerged over the four-year wait before any teams are relegated or promoted, the fact that tier two nations will effectively be excluded the chance to play tier one nations during any Nations Cup year, and the end of any possibility of three-match test series being played in the Southern Hemisphere by Home Nations teams, other than the Lions.
But what has been met with almost universal approval, is the news that the draw for the 2027 Rugby World Cup will take place in January 2026, the latest point a draw has been made ahead of the tournament since the draw for the 2003 competition was made in June 2002.
France 2023 has faced much criticism this year for its draw, which saw the top five teams in the world at the start of the competition on one side, meaning they were unable to face teams from the weaker side until last weekend's semi-finals. These were predictably won by teams from the stronger half of the tournament.
The debate about the wider points of Tuesday's announcement will continue for a long time to come, but after nearly a decade of speculation about a global calendar and tournament, and two decades of clamouring for the World Cup draw to be later, it appears an official agreement has finally been reached.
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