New Global Women’s Rugby Competition To ‘supercharge’ The Sport
World Rugby has announced a new global women’s 15s tournament which the governing body says will ‘supercharge’ the game.
An initial £6.4 million investment will underpin a new three-tiered, 16-team ‘WXV’ competition which will be hosted in a new September and October competition window in every year except World Cup years, and will begin in 2023.
World Rugby says the plans come as part of its commitment to increase ‘competition, commercial and fan engagement’ opportunities of women’s rugby, as well as raising its level of competitiveness ahead of an expanded, 16-team Rugby World Cup 2025.
Teams will be placed into their tiers for WXV competitions as a result of their finishing positions within the respective existing annual regional competitions, such as the Women’s Six Nations. The regional competitions – played within a new regional window – must be completed by June each year.
“This is a landmark moment for the sport,” said Sir Bill Beaumont, Chairman, World Rugby.
“Today’s announcement of a new, global international 15s calendar will underpin the future success and accelerate the development of the women’s game.
“By establishing a unified international 15s calendar and introducing WXV we are creating a platform for the women’s international teams to compete in more consistent, competitive and sustainable competitions at regional and global level. At the same time, we are also growing the profile, fanbase and commercial revenue, generating opportunities for women’s rugby through the new Women in Rugby commercial programme.
“This is an ambitious, long-term commitment to make the global game more competitive, to grow the women’s game and support the expansion of Rugby World Cup to 16 teams from 2025 and beyond.”
Alison Hughes, Competitions Operations Manager, World Rugby, added: “We have been working in collaboration with our member unions, regions and other key stakeholders over the past two years, developing the unified global international 15s calendar and competition offering.
“To grow the game at elite level we need to ensure our member unions have quality, competitive and consistent playing opportunities so they can continue to develop and invest in their women’s high-performance programmes.
“As part of the international 15s calendar development we have focused on strengthening existing regional competitions and also established an exciting new cross-regional competition to increase annual playing opportunities for some of the top teams in the world where it simply did not exist before.”
The new competition announcement follows the decision to postpone the 2021 World Cup. That tournament was set to be held in New Zealand in September and October this year, but will be pushed back to 2022.
