(ATR) World Rugby unveils a host selection process that will award all of the men’s and women’s Rugby World Cups for 2025 through 2031 in May of 2022.
Details of the timeline were released on Thursday to determine the hosts for the 2025 and 2029 women’s events and the 2027 and 2031 men’s events.
The initial dialogue phase begins in February 2021, with interested unions, commercial partners and other key stakeholders talking with the federation to learn what is required to make a bid.
The candidate phase begins in May 2021. Candidates will put together their proposals with support from World Rugby. The phase ends in January 2022 when candidate files, hosting agreements and guarantees are due.
In February 2022, a three-month evaluation phase begins. The evaluation report produced by "relevant industry experts" will be provided to the World Rugby Council for a vote in May 2022.
"The global COVID-19 pandemic, while incredibly challenging, has provided the opportunity to press the reset button and examine how we can do things differently and better," said World Rugby Chair Bill Beaumont in a statement.
"This ground-breaking dual awarding process reflects our vision to further align the selection process of our men’s and women’s Rugby World Cups, providing longer-term certainty in terms of preparation and partnership with World Rugby for future hosts, maximizing legacy, sustainability and engagement outcomes.
"This is also a process that recognizes the need to adapt following the COVID-19 pandemic and provide a stronger partnership with interested nations in developing their hosting models. This process, combined with the announcement that Japan 2019 delivered a record £4.3 billion total economic impact for the host nation, will help maximize hosting interest for our top men's and women's 15s tournaments."
World Rugby approved joint bids in October of last year to help grow the list of potential candidates.
At present Australia appears the overwhelming favorite to host the 2027 men’s tournament with Russia the only other country currently showing interest. Argentina pulled out of the running in April.
The United States, like Russia a small player in world rugby, is believed by many to be the favorite to host in 2031. A 2027 bid would seem less appealing, given that the USA is already co-hosting the 2026 FIFA World Cup and Los Angeles is hosting the 2028 Olympics.
Choosing Australia in 2027 and the USA in 2031 would follow the successful dual awarding of the 2015 tournament to England and the 2019 event to Japan. World Rugby chief executive Brett Gosper admits that the federation might not have taken the "risk, as it was seen at the time" to award the ultimately very successful 2019 World Cup to the emerging Japan without naming the traditional power England for 2015.
There are no known bidders for future women's tournaments.
New Zealand hosts the next women’s tournament in 2021 while France has the next men's event in 2023.
Written by Gerard Farek
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