THE RUGBY WORLD Cup will be staged in the United States for the first time in 2031 after officials announced the host nations for a number of men’s and women’s tournaments on Thursday.
The 2027 event will take place in Australia, with women’s tournaments going to England (2025), Australia (2029) and the United States (2033).
By taking the World Cup to North America, officials hope to grow the sport in a non-traditional rugby nation.
“Today, we have approved three exceptional Rugby World Cup host nations — England, Australia and USA — providing unprecedented certainty and an unparallelled opportunity to accelerate the growth and impact of rugby globally,” said World Rugby chairman Bill Beaumont.
“It is great for rugby, for fans and for the host nations.”
USA Rugby chief executive Ross Young said: “We look forward to partnering with World Rugby in the years ahead to ensure that our preparations for these tournaments and the events themselves are a paradigm-shifting catalyst for the growth of our sport, not only here in the United States but around the world.”
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Not sure what to make of the USA RWC, I think it should be on paper a good move to grow the game out there, but it could be lost in the flow of other things happening out there, I think a South American RWC sooner rather than later would be good, as the game is clearly growing there with Uruguay and now Chile clearly improving. But I’d imagine after 2031 they’ll return to Europe and probably another England RWC, or possibly South Africa.
@Patrick Breen: I’m all for growing the game but it’s criminal that we haven’t hosted a World Cup
@Sustainable Hedgehog: Just like the Champions Cup, Ireland are not seen as a commercial entity , hence we will only get scraps. Need to work the room so to speak and get some heavy weights behind a bid to host it
@Noel Lynn: do you mean the football or rugby champions Cup? We’ve hosted the European rugby Cup when it was the Heineken. Although we are sort of over due another go, especially as we put so much weight into it.
@Sustainable Hedgehog: we have co-hosted officially in 1991, and held games as part of Wales hosting in 1999, just FYI I know we haven’t hosted alone, but we’ve had some from of hosting duties in the past. I’d love if we could at some stage host it, but I guess our Stadiums and Infrastructure just aren’t up to scratch.
@Sustainable Hedgehog: Never happen until we sort out our infrastructures, rightly so.
How in God’s name did Ireland miss out again to France who have already hosted the WC. I wouldn’t bother trying to bid to host it anymore. Thanks Scotland and Wales.
@Paul Harte: Not enough iron curtain era busses to drag the lads in from ‘Dublin International’
@Paul Harte: France are a large important country with lots of cities, stadia and tv viewers to bring in money