Festival of World Cups

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The Festival of World Cups is a collection of rugby league world cups usually held as a support series alongside the centrepiece Men's, Women's, and Wheelchair tournaments.

First held in 2008, as part of the Centenary of Rugby League in Australia celebrations, the festival has been a part of every Men's Rugby League World Cup since.

The 2008 festival included the following events: [1]

The same events also took place in 2013, [2] but due to concerns over funding in 2017 the Police World Cup was cancelled and the wheelchair tournament was relocated to France. [3] [4] In 2017, the women's event was removed from the proceedings and upgraded to a centrepiece event, [5] along with the wheelchair event in 2021. [6]

The 2021 festival was anticipated to expand to include the following events: [7]

However, in August 2020, the festival was postponed and when the World Cup was rescheduled for 2022 only the Masters and PDRL events took place. [8] [9] [10]

A list of festivals are as follows:

References

  1. "Results: 2008". RLEF. Archived from the original on 24 July 2009.
  2. "About the Festival of World Cups". FOWC2013. Archived from the original on 29 October 2013.
  3. "Rugby League World Cup already facing budget cuts due to shortfalls". Sydney Morning Herald. 8 May 2016. Archived from the original on 8 November 2020. Retrieved 8 March 2024.
  4. "USA And Canada To Host 2025 World Cup". NSW Rugby League. 20 November 2016. Retrieved 7 March 2024.
  5. "Sydney to host historic Women's World Cup in 2017". NRL.com. 2016-09-13. Retrieved 2016-09-13.
  6. "2021 Rugby League World Cup: Emirates Stadium among host venues but Wigan misses out". BBC Sport . 29 January 2019. Retrieved 29 January 2019.
  7. "Record numbers for Rugby League Festival of World Cups 2021". www.rlwc2021.com. 13 September 2019. Archived from the original on 30 November 2022. Retrieved 17 May 2023.
  8. Shaw, Matthew (27 August 2020). "Festival of World Cups postponed". Total Rugby League – TotalRL.com | Rugby League Express | Rugby League World. Retrieved 17 May 2023.
  9. Field, Paul (15 November 2022). "International Masters festival biggest ever". Masters Rugby League. Archived from the original on 15 November 2022. Retrieved 19 November 2022.
  10. "PDRL World Cup: England, Australia, Wales, New Zealand compete in first event". BBC Sport. 21 October 2022. Archived from the original on 21 October 2022.