Tournament details | |
---|---|
Host nation | England |
Dates | 22 August 2025 – 27 September 2025 |
No. of nations | 16 |
← 2021 2029 → |
The 2025 Women's Rugby World Cup will be the tenth edition of the women's Rugby World Cup, as organized by World Rugby. It is scheduled to be held in England. [1]
It will be the second women's Rugby Union World Cup to be hosted by England, after the 2010 edition. It will be the fifth hosted in the British Isles.
The tournament will be expanded to 16 teams, from the 12 which participated in 2021. [2]
New Zealand enter the tournament as defending champions following their victory against England in the 2021 Rugby World Cup Final. [3]
On 13 August 2020 World Rugby announced that the hosting rights to the next two world cups, men and women's, would be selected during the same process. [4] These were the 2027 and 2031 men's tournaments and the 2025 and 2029 women's tournaments. The RFU confirmed their intent to bid for the 2025 tournament in October 2021. [5]
World Rugby awarded England preferred candidate status for the 2025 tournament in November 2021. [6] England were confirmed as hosts on 13 May 2022. [7]
In August 2023, eight venues were confirmed for the 2025 Rugby World Cup. [8] [9]
London | Sunderland | Brighton and Hove | Bristol | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Twickenham Stadium | Stadium of Light | Ashton Gate | ||
Capacity: 82,000 | Capacity: 49,000 | Capacity: 31,876 | Capacity: 27,000 | |
Exeter | Northampton | Manchester | York | |
Sandy Park | Franklin's Gardens | York Community Stadium | ||
Capacity: 15,600 | Capacity: 15,249 | Capacity: 12,000 | Capacity: 8,500 | |
The qualification pathway for the competition was confirmed in January 2021. [10]
Tournament hosts England qualify automatically. They will be joined by the teams that reached the semi-final stage of the 2021 Rugby World Cup, who also qualified automatically.
Five places will be decided via regional qualifying competitions: one each for Africa, Oceania, Asia, South America and Europe. One place will also be decided by the results of the Pacific Fours cross-regional competition.
The remaining six places will be awarded via WXV 2024 competition. These places will be awarded to the highest-ranked teams which have not yet qualified by any other method. As there will be no relegation from WXV 1 in the WXV 2023 season, Australia and Wales are already assured of qualification through WXV, should they fail to win their respective regional qualification place.
Region | Team | Qualification method | Previous apps | Previous best result | World Rugby Ranking¹ |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Africa | |||||
Asia | |||||
Europe | England | Hosts + 2021 runners-up | 9 | Champions(1994 ,2014) | |
France | 2021 semi-finalists | 9 | Third place (seven times) | ||
North America | Canada | 2021 semi-finalists | 9 | Runners-up (2014) | |
Oceania | New Zealand | 2021 champions | 8 | Champions(six times) | |
South America | |||||
The IRB2015 Rugby World Cup was the eighth Rugby World Cup, the quadrennial rugby union world championship. The tournament was hosted by England from 18 September to 31 October. Of the 20 countries competing in the World Cup in 2011, there was only one change: Uruguay replaced Russia. This was the first World Cup with no new teams to the tournament.
The Rugby World Cup host nation is selected by World Rugby at a meeting six years before each tournament. Each of the Rugby World Cups from 1987 to 2015 were hosted by countries that are considered the traditional powers in World Rugby. The first non Rugby Championship or Six Nations country to host a Rugby World Cup was Japan in 2019, after failed bids for the 2011 and 2015 tournaments.
The women's Rugby World Cup is the women's rugby union world championship which is organised by World Rugby. The first Rugby World Cup for women was held in 1991, but it was not until the 1998 tournament that the tournament received official backing from the International Rugby Board ; by 2009, the IRB had retroactively recognized the 1991 and 1994 tournaments and their champions.
The Rugby League World Cup is an international rugby league tournament contested by the top national men's representative teams. The tournament is administered by the International Rugby League and was first held in France in 1954, which was the first World Cup held for any form of rugby football.
The Asia Rugby Championship for women's national fifteen-a-side teams is a rugby union tournament that has been contested since 2006. Organised by Asia Rugby, there are currently two competition divisions — the Championship, and Division 1. The championship is also the continental qualifying tournament for Asian women's teams in the lead up to the Rugby World Cup, and the WXV.
The Canada women's national rugby union team represents Canada in international rugby union competitions. They are overseen by Rugby Canada, the governing body of rugby union in Canada.
The Japan women's national rugby union team are a national sporting side of Japan, representing them at rugby union. The side first played in 1991.
The Samoa women's national rugby union team is a national sporting side of Samoa, representing the nation at rugby union. The side first played in 2000, and have competed in three Rugby World Cup's since their debut in the 2002 tournament in Spain. In 2023, they claimed their first Oceania Championship.
Scotland have played in every Rugby World Cup since the inaugural tournament in 1987.
The Colombia women's rugby team represents Colombia in women's Rugby union internationally.
Qualifying for the 2019 Rugby World Cup for the Americas began in March 2016, where across 3 years, 20 teams competed for two direct qualification spots into the final tournament, and one spot in the Repechage tournament. For qualification purposes, the two Americas regions Rugby Americas North and Sudamérica Rugby formed the Americas region to compete for the two Americas berths in the World Cup.
Qualifying for the 2019 Rugby World Cup for Oceania Rugby began in June 2016, where across 2 years, 3 teams competed for two direct qualification spots from Oceania. Two places were available to Oceania in a cross-regional play-off series' to qualify for the World Cup and or advance through the Repechage.
The Papua New Guinea women's national rugby union team played their first international against Fiji in 2016. They compete annually in the Oceania Rugby Women's Championship, and have not qualified for the Rugby World Cup as yet.
Oceania Rugby Women’s Championship is an international women's rugby union competition contested by women's national teams from Oceania. The current Champions are Samoa who claimed their first Oceania title at the Championship in Australia. Fiji has won the most titles with three.
The 2027 Men's Rugby World Cup is scheduled to be the eleventh edition of the Rugby World Cup, the quadrennial world championship for men's rugby union teams. It is scheduled to take place in Australia from 1 October to 13 November 2027.
WXV is a women's international rugby union competition that will be held annually, being launched in 2023. The competition will consist of three tiers, respectively named WXV 1, WXV 2, and WXV 3. Each tier will consist of six teams divided into two pools and will run in a split pool format, where teams only face teams from the other pool.
The 2023 WXV is the first edition of WXV, a women's international rugby union group tournament for senior national teams organised by World Rugby, and will take place between 13 October and 4 November. The competition will feature three divisions of six nations each, evenly divided across two pools. Participating teams were determined by regional competitions and play-in matches. Wellington, Dunedin, and Auckland in New Zealand will host the first-division WXV 1. Stellenbosch and, Cape Town in South Africa will host WXV 2, and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates will host WXV 3.
The 2023 Asia Rugby Women's Championship is the 12th edition of the Asia Rugby Women's Championship, and took place from 23–28 May and was hosted in Almaty, Kazakhstan. The winner and runner-up will classify for the inaugural edition of the WXV. The winner qualifies for WXV2, and the runner-up competes in WXV3. WXV will also provide a pathway to the 2025 Rugby World Cup, with at least the top five non-qualified teams at the end of WXV 2024 earning qualification to the tournament.
Melaia Matanatabu is a Fijian rugby union and rugby sevens player. She played centre for the Fiji women's national rugby union team. and Fiji women's national rugby sevens team.
Bulou Vasuturaga is a Fijian rugby union player who played prop for the Fiji women's national rugby union team.