The Six Nations Championship is an annual international men's rugby union competition between the teams of England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales. The current champions are Ireland, who won the 2023 tournament.
The Wales men's national football team represents Wales in international football. It is controlled by the Football Association of Wales (FAW), the governing body for football in Wales. They have been a member of FIFA since 1946 and a member of UEFA since 1954.
The United Rugby Championship (URC) is an annual rugby union competition involving professional teams from Ireland, Italy, Scotland, South Africa, and Wales. For sponsorship reasons the league is known as the Vodacom United Rugby Championship in South Africa, and the BKT United Rugby Championship in the competition's other territories, the split branding mirroring the format previously adopted in Super Rugby. The Championship represents the highest level of domestic club or franchise rugby in each of its constituent countries. The Championship is one of the three major professional leagues in Europe, the most successful teams from which go forward to compete in the highest-level continental club competitions, the European Rugby Champions Cup and Challenge Cup. Since 2022–23, despite the name, South African teams have been eligible to qualify for European competitions, and one South African place in the Champions Cup from the Championship is guaranteed.
The 1995–96 Heineken Cup was the first edition of the Heineken Cup, which was to become the annual rugby union European club competition for clubs from the top six nations in European rugby. Competing teams, from France, Ireland, Italy, Wales and, for the only time to date, Romania, were divided into four pools of three, in which teams played each other only once, meaning one home and one away game per team. The winners of the pools qualified for the knock-out stages.
The Wales rugby league team represents Wales in representative rugby league football matches. Currently the team is ranked 17th in the IRL World Rankings. The team was run under the auspices of the Rugby Football League, but an independent body, Wales Rugby League, now runs the team from Cardiff. Six Welsh players have been entered into the Rugby League Hall Of Fame.
Association football is organised on a separate basis in each of the four constituent countries that make up the United Kingdom (UK), with each having a national football association responsible for the overall management of football within their respective country. There is no United Kingdom national football team. Football has been the most popular sport in the UK since the 1860s. Rugby union, rugby league and cricket are other popular sports.
The European Rugby League (ERL) is the umbrella body for nations playing the sport of rugby league football across Europe. In the absence of other continental federations, ERL also controls rugby league in North America the Middle East and Africa through its sub-branches Americas Rugby League and Middle East-Africa Rugby League.
Association football is one of the most popular sports in Wales, along with rugby union. Wales has produced club teams of varying fortunes since the early birth of football during the Victorian period, and in 1876 a Wales national football team played their first international match. Football has always had a close rivalry with the country's de facto national sport rugby union, and it is much discussed as to which is Wales' more popular game. The Football Association of Wales (FAW), was established in 1876 to oversee the Wales national team and govern the sport in Wales, later creating and running the Welsh football league system.
The European Championship B, is a rugby league football competition. The competition is organised by the European Rugby League and is the second tier of the European Championship competition. It was first held in 2006 as the Central Europe Development Tri-Nations.
The Rugby League European Championship C is an international European rugby league football tournament organised by the European Rugby League for third tier rugby league nations.
The South Wales Premiership is the league for amateur clubs in southern Wales. Previously it was part of the Rugby League Conference but became standalone in 2012.
The EPCR Challenge Cup is an annual rugby union competition organised by European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR). It is the second-tier competition for clubs based in European leagues behind the European Rugby Champions Cup. From its inception in 1996 to 2014, it was known as the European Challenge Cup and governed by European Rugby Cup (ERC). Following disagreements in the structure of the tournament's format and division of revenue, the English and French leagues withdrew to form the EPCR, which organized the Challenge Cup and the Champions Cup since the 2014–15 season.
The Rugby League World Cup qualification is the process a national team goes through to qualify for the Rugby League World Cup Finals.
The 2021 Men's Rugby League World Cup qualification was the qualifying process which will decide the 8 teams that would join the 8 quarter-finalists from the 2021 World Cup including the hosts England, who received an automatic spot, at the 2021 Rugby League World Cup. The process commenced in June 2018, with the commencement of the 2018–19 Rugby League European Championship C tournament, which acted as the first round for European qualification.
The 2020 European Championship was a planned international rugby league tournament that would have taken place in October and November 2020. Six teams were to have competed in the 2020 edition, with Italy and Spain joining the four teams that participated in 2018. The teams were split into two pools of three, where the winners would have contested a final and the bottom teams would have been relegated to the 2022 European Championship B. The tournament was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The 2021 European Championship B was an international rugby league tournament that took place in October 2021, originally scheduled to take place in October 2020. The tournament was postponed in July 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A revised schedule was announced in April 2021, and the tournament details were confirmed in August 2021.
The 2021 European Championship D was an international rugby league tournament. Originally scheduled to take place in October and November 2020 the championship was postponed until 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic following a meeting of the European Rugby League (ERL) in July 2020. Four teams competed in the tournament; Czechia, Malta, Netherlands and Turkey.
A list of men and women international rugby league matches played throughout 2021 and does not include wheelchair rugby league international matches. A † denotes a recognised, but unofficial match that did not contribute to the IRL World Rankings.
The 2023 Rugby League European Championship will be the 34th edition of the Rugby League European Championship, and the inaugural edition of the promotion and relegation era of the tournament after the cancellation of the planned first edition in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Women's Rugby League European Championship is an international rugby league football tournament for European national teams first held in 2022.
2023 Rugby League European Championship 
France (9th title)
England (14 titles)
