2023-09-29 17:39:38
The move to 24 participating nations, compared to 20 today, from the next Rugby World Cup, in 2027 in Australia, is no longer in doubt. “There are many good reasons why expanding to 24 teams is the right thing to do,” World Rugby chief executive Alan Gilpin told the Telegraph on Wednesday.
“It’s very well advanced,” confirms a source participating in ongoing discussions within World Rugby. There is a fairly widely shared consensus and I don’t see who would oppose it from now on. »
If this major development, which several small nations had called for recently, seems to be on track, it remains to determine the most appropriate formula to involve 24 teams without extending the duration of the competition.
A World Cup tightened over six weeks compared to seven today
According to our information, here too a consensus would be about to emerge around the following format: six groups of 4 teams each of which the first two and the four best thirds would qualify for the final phase. That is a total of sixteen teams who would have the chance to participate in the final phase compared to eight today and therefore, in theory, an increase in the number of potential winners of the competition.
The major revolution would therefore be the introduction of the round of 16, i.e. an additional round of the final phase compared to today. But, with one less group match and a slightly tightened schedule, the World Cup could be held over seven weekends and a total duration of six weeks, compared to seven weeks currently.
In this format, the idea would be to have the teams play every six days and to spread out the matches better in order to have only one day per week without a match and to avoid downtime. All this must still be discussed by the federations and then validated by the World Rugby board, but the negotiations seem to have made significant progress over the last week.
If we stick to the current World Rugby rankings, the four best nations that could enter the World Cup would be the United States, Spain, Canada and Hong Kong. Russia, which has already participated, Brazil or Belgium for example would also be candidates in the event of enlargement.
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