World Rugby Nations Championship: Everything you need to know

The World Rugby Nations Championship is the bi-annual event planned to bring together the Six Nations members and Rugby Championship alongside two other invited teams.

World Rugby’s members are not all onside with the initiative.

A broad spectrum of the rugby world has expressed concerns about how the tournament will impact the game.

The fear is that the event will entrench existing financial divides in the sport.

There are also questions about whether or not the event will devalue the Rugby World Cup.

HOW WILL THE WORLD RUGBY NATIONS CHAMPIONSHIP WORK?

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In addition to the Six Nations and Rugby Championship participating nations, the tournament will feature two more “invited” foreign unions, most likely Japan and Fiji. It will be a biannual, north-south event held in years other than World Cup and British & Irish Lions Tour.

The six nations that make up the “European Conference” and the Rugby Championship countries along with the invited nations will make up the “Rest of the World Conference.”

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During the July and November Test windows, the teams will only face the six countries in their rival conference.

The two best-finishing teams in each conference will square off in a final at the end of the second window, with the winner becoming the inaugural World Rugby Nations Champions.

The competition will only take place once before the next World Cup starting in 2026.

It will repeat in 2028 and 2030.

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By the 2030 season the new event aims to have two divisions with a promotion and relegation system in place.Teams from Asia, Africa, and South America as well as teams from the Rugby Europe Championship and the enlarged Pacific Nations Cup will be selected at this level.

A PUZZLE

In addition to figuring out a plan for how the extra four nations would qualify when the World Cup moves to 24 countries in 2027, World Rugby wants to wrap up those qualifying specifics before the mid-year Test window in 2024.

Critics of the new tournament feel that it will serve to entrench the divide between rugby’s have’s and it’s have nots through TV money.

Some have painted this new event as a desperate cash grab from World Rugby.