2023-10-24 17:05:15
The rugby planet is undergoing its revolution. Surely the most important that the sport has known since its professionalization in 1995. This Tuesday, October 24, in the final stretch of the World Cup and at the end of a dense and lively meeting in Paris, the various members of World Rugby , the organizing body of world rugby, have agreed on several major reforms in the very near future.
Since 2003 and until today, the twenty selections qualified for the World Cup were divided into four groups of five teams and the first two of each group advanced directly to the quarter-finals. At the next World Cup, in 2027 in Australia, there will no longer be 20 but 24 nations represented, which will be divided into six groups of four with round of 16 matches. The competition will be reduced to six weeks, “while promoting a rhythm that gives momentum to the group stage and respecting the same minimum number of rest days (five) between matches” as during the World Cup in France, details the instance.
Another big news: the consortiums of Six Nations Rugby and South Africa New Zealand Australia and Argentina Rugby (SANZAAR), the organization which holds the rights to major club and nation competitions in the southern hemisphere, have just finalized the final preliminary details to the creation of a new world league. Biannual, launched from 2026 to fill the gap between each World Cup without encroaching on the British Lions tours, it will replace the traditional summer and autumn tours during which simple test matches (friendly matches) were held between selections.
The member federations have said yes to the establishment of two divisions: the participants of Division 1, the “Nations Cup” will be the teams of the Six Nations Tournament (England, Scotland, France, Wales, Ireland and Italy) , and the four from the Rugby Championship (South Africa, Argentina, Australia and New Zealand), plus two additional selections chosen by invitation. In this case, it would be Fiji and Japan respectively 10th and 12th in the ranking.
At the same time, a second level called the “Challenger Series” was created. This division 2 would include the countries ranked between 13th and 24th in the world. In detail, this concerns Portugal, Georgia, Samoa, Tonga, Uruguay, the United States, Spain, Romania, Namibia, Chile, Canada and Hong Kong. With the exception of the United States and Hong Kong, all these nations were qualified for the World Cup in France. The meetings, six per country, will take place during the windows of July in the Southern Hemisphere and November in the Northern Hemisphere and would lead to a final at the end of November.
Risks of increasing the gap between strong and weak nations
The objective behind this second championship being, ultimately, to establish a promotion-relegation system from 2030. In other words: until then, this new proposal does not risk reducing the abysmal level gap between the best nations on the planet and the weakest. An eternal refrain chanted in unison by all the followers of the oval after each World Cup group stage, where we very often find the same qualifiers in the quarters (and the 24-player World Cup should not disrupt this state of affairs), after a start to the competition devoid of any suspense and marked by a good number of beatings. Which was again the case in France this year.
“This means that the Top 12 teams will play each other on a regular basis, with the performance and sponsorship advantages that go with it,” observed Peter Harding, general manager of the Tonga Federation ten days ago when interviewed. on the subject. The second tier teams will play against each other and will not often have the opportunity to face those at the top level.” Especially since the accessions to D1 as imagined for the moment will be dearly paid: the first two teams of the “Challenger Series” will still have to go through a play-off against the two less good ones of the “Nations Cup” before claiming the ‘to integrate. A system modeled on what is done between the Top 14 and Pro D2.
These reluctances expressed in particular by lower-level countries explain why the agreement took time before being signed, even though this competition had been under discussion for a while. Negotiations on the sidelines of the World Cup in France, an ideal meeting place for everyone to see each other, also made it possible to complete the final commercial, financial and sporting details of the project.
Overloaded calendars to harmonize
Another annual tournament, approved by World Rugby, will also be launched in 2024: the Pacific Nations Cup, a sort of Six Nations between the second-rate countries of the Pacific, namely Fiji, Japan, Samoa, Tonga, Canada and the United States. The tournament will be played in August and September, and will include two groups of three teams: one will bring together North America and Japan, the other will pit the Pacific Islands against each other. Before the final phases which will be hosted in turn by Japan and the United States.
Finally, there is the other big piece that still drives internal discussions to this day: the harmonization of the calendars of the northern and southern hemispheres. To make this new formula fit within an already (over) busy rugby schedule, a first provision ratified this Tuesday morning will extend the autumn break from three to four weeks, and reduce the duration of the Six Nations from seven to six weeks. Enough to reduce as much as possible the famous “duplicates”, these periods during which the top 14 teams, for example, have to cope without some of their executives, who have left to strengthen the selections.
“In its entirety, the initial text even imposed seven additional duplicates. This almost meant the death of the LNR (National Rugby League), which we did not want, said this Tuesday the president of the FFR Florian Grill with Midi Olympique. This, among other things, is what the negotiations focused on yesterday (Monday) until late in the evening and again this morning. We wanted adjustments to the text, we got them. We therefore gave the green light this Tuesday at 8 a.m..”
Future discussions will focus in particular on refining these calendars. Among the avenues mentioned to optimize the seasons: shifting the Six Nations from the end of February to the beginning of April; ditto for the Rugby Championship (the counterpart of the southern hemisphere with Argentina, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand), currently scheduled from August to September, which could be moved by several months for take place at the same time as the European competition.
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