World Cup expands to 24 teams amid radical new calendar

PARIS : Rugby hailed the expansion of the World Cup and the introduction of a Nations League competition as a new dawn for the sport as it sought to widen its international reach and increase revenue and opportunity.

World Rugby (WR) announced on Tuesday it had made several radical changes to the sport’s calendar that it hoped would take the game into an new era and which it said was the final step in a long-term review of the game and its future.

The changes includes an expanded 24-team men's World Cup, a two-tier Nations League competition which would eventually offer lower-ranked sides more opportunity to play against top opposition and a new aligned international calendar.

“If rugby is going to become a truly global sport, we simply have to make it more relevant, more accessible to more people around the world,” WR chairman Sir Bill Beaumont told a press conference in Paris.

"It's fitting that we finish this, the sport’s greatest celebration of togetherness, with the sport’s greatest feat of togetherness, the most significant development in the sport since the game went professional.

Promised changes to rugby’s traditional order have been debated for more than a decade but have routinely met with opposition from the sport’s superpowers and Beaumont admitted the new plans had dissenters. “But on the whole there was a pretty significant vote in favour of the two competitions,” he told reporters.

The 2027 World Cup in Australia will expand from the current 20 to 24 teams, split into six first-round groups containing four sides each. There will be a round of 16 added and, despite more competing sides, the tournament will be shortened from seven weeks to six.

LATER DRAW

WR said the draw for the next World Cup would be made in