The 2025 Rugby Europe Championship, which doubled as the qualifying process for the 2027 Men's Rugby World Cup for Europe, is the ongoing, ninth Rugby Europe Championship, the annual rugby union competition for the top European national teams outside the Six Nations Championship, and the 54th edition of the competition (including all its previous incarnations as the FIRA Tournament, Rugby Union European Cup, FIRA Nations Cup, FIRA Trophy, and European Nations Cup).[1]
The serpentine system was applied to allocate each team to their respective groups.[3] Each team plays a total of five games (three round robin group matches to determine the team's path and two play-off matches).[3] Seeding (for a group) and relegation are calculated over a two-year cycle, as is the promotion from the Trophy competition.[3]
This year's edition of the Rugby Europe Championship doubles as the year of the 2027 Rugby World Cup qualifiers for the European region.[4] The top two sides from each pool will qualify for the Rugby World Cup, with the final & bronze final acting as seeding matches to seed the team Europe 1–4. The Ranking Finals will then act as the play-off to determine Europe 5, who will advance to the final qualification tournament.
Updated to match(es) played on 9 February 2025. Source: Rugby Europe[9] Rules for classification: If two teams have the same number of points the best ranked will be: 1) match points in the games played between the tied Unions; 2) tries in the games played between the tied Unions; 3) match points difference in all pool games; 4) tries for in all pool games; 5) match points for in all pool games. If three or more teams have same number of points, the best ranked will be:1) match points difference in all pool games; 2) tries for in all pool games; 4) match points for in all pool games. Points were awarded to the teams as follows: Win – 4 points, Draw – 2 points, At least 3 more tries than opponent – 1 point, Loss within 7 points – 1 point[10] (Q) Qualified for the phase indicated
Updated to match(es) played on 8 February 2025. Source: Rugby Europe[9] Rules for classification: If two teams have the same number of points the best ranked will be: 1) match points in the games played between the tied Unions; 2) tries in the games played between the tied Unions; 3) match points difference in all pool games; 4) tries difference for in all pool games; 5) match points for in all pool games. If three or more teams have same number of points, the best ranked will be:1) match points difference in all pool games; 2) tries for in all pool games; 4) match points for in all pool games. Points were awarded to the teams as follows: Win – 4 points, Draw – 2 points, At least 3 more tries than opponent – 1 point, Loss within 7 points – 1 point[10] (Q) Qualified for the phase indicated
Notes: There was no qualification for the 1987 World Cup as places were given by invitation only.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
Belgium 
Laurent Dossat
Georgia 
Richard Cockerill 
Germany 
Netherlands 
Lyn Jones 
Portugal 
Simon Mannix 
Romania 
Spain 
Pablo Bouza 
Switzerland 
