World Rugby amends Rugby World Cup hosting selection process

The World Rugby Council has approved a progressive set of recommendations by the Rugby World Cup Board which will impact the Rugby World Cup hosting selections. World Rugby say these changes “reflect the organisation’s ambition to select future men’s and women’s Rugby World Cup hosts via a transparent, best-practice host selection process.”

World Rugby Chairman Sir Bill Beaumont said: “In my second term, I have strived to implement key governance enhancements that inject further transparency, clarity and consistency into our decision-making processes and Rugby World Cup is at the centre of that strategy as our flagship men’s and women’s event and our major driver of revenue.”

Rugby World Cup Selection process

On August 13th 2020, World Rugby announced groundbreaking changes to the new Rugby World Cup selection process as the hosting rights to the next two men’s (2027 and 2031) and women’s (2025 and 2029) Rugby World Cups would be determined in the same process.

Now World Rugby has confirmed that the “women’s (2025 and 2029) and men’s (2027 and 2031) Rugby World Cups will be determined by an open vote following consideration of a risk-based technical evaluation.”

What are the key RWC selection changes?

The key decisions taken by the Council in the Rugby World Cup hosting selection process are:

• The Council will consider a risk-based evaluation of candidate bids by the Rugby World Cup Board and independent experts, rather than a recommendation.
• The awarding of the next two men’s and women’s Rugby Worlds Cups will be determined by an open electronic vote (the results of which will be published).
• Where the decision involves only single nation bids, no bidder will vote in the award decision (as previously).
• Where the decision involves a joint nation bid versus a single nation bid, the following process will apply: Both the single nation and joint nation bid unions may vote. The single nation bidder will retain its existing Council vote allocation. Voting rights for a joint nation bid will be capped at a maximum of three votes (being the maximum number of votes that any union represented on Council is entitled to).

Beaumont added, “The decision taken by my Council colleagues will ensure that we are able to advance with a world-class host selection process that will deliver a robust 10-year growth strategy for the sport as we collectively look to rebound from the pandemic and optimise revenue certainty for reinvestment in the sport at all levels.”

Rugby World Cups 2025-2031

This three-phase model was launched in February 2021 and culminates with the selection of the four hosts at World Rugby’s annual meeting of Council in May 2022.

Read more in our previous article here.

Rugby World Cups 2021 and 2023

The next two World Cups take place in New Zealand in 2021 (Women) and in France in 2023 (Men).

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