IRL Board update: World Cup bids & international calendar

The International Rugby League Board has reviewed bids for the 2028 IRL Women’s Rugby League World Cup, 2029 IRL Wheelchair Rugby League World Cup and 2030 IRL Men’s Rugby League World Cup, and is now in a clarification phase.

After announcing that the Men’s, Women’s and Wheelchair World Cups would be staged separately following RLWC2026, IRL initiated an Invitation to Tender (ITT) process and last year announced 13 confirmed tenderers for the three events.

As part of the ITT process, the IRL Board recently conducted interviews with some tenderers.

The IRL Board also endorsed the bid from Canada to host the inaugural Women’s World Series in October to determine the final Women’s RLWC2026 berth between the Ravens, Fiji, Ireland and Nigeria.

The tournament is being supported by the City of Brampton in Ontario, with the semi-finals to be played at Terry Fox Stadium, Brampton, on October 21 and the final at Lamport Stadium, Toronto, on October 26.

The Board was also prepared to invest in the Men’s World Series but there was no viable bid measured against a business case to host the tournament.

As a result, France will play Jamaica and Cook Islands will meet South Africa in Northern and Southern Hemisphere RLWC2026 qualifying play-offs later in the year.

Details of the international calendar from 2028 to 2030 will be determined once hosts for the 2028 Women’s IRL World Cup, 2029 Wheelchair IRL World Cup and 2030 Men’s IRL World Cup have been confirmed.

The IRL announced details of the international calendar in August 2023, which included:

·       Staging the IRL Rugby League World Cup in 2026 in the Southern Hemisphere, which IRL confirmed in July 2024 will be hosted by the Australian Rugby League Commission in Australia and Papua New Guinea;

·       The return of major tours, which to date has seen historic tours by Tonga in 2023 and Samoa in 2024 to England;

·       The establishment of the Men’s and Women’s Pacific Championships to create more international matches for Australia, Cook Islands, Fiji, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Samoa and Tonga;

·       More focus on World Cup qualification and the creation of a new asset, the Rugby League World Series, which has seen an historic Women’s RLWC qualifying process, which involved 16 nations playing 15 matches in IRL’s four regions, and which will culminate with the inaugural World Series in Canada later this year;

·       The return of the Rugby League Ashes series between Australia and England, to be played at Wembley, Everton and Leeds later this year.

·       England will host New Zealand in 2027 and will again play an Ashes series against Australia in 2028.

There were more sanctioned international matches played in 2023 (64) and 2024 (72) than any previous year, excluding World Cups, and 2024 had the most games with the exception of 2022, which included 61 matches at RLWC2021.

The revenue that IRL is anticipating from the World Cups and other major tournaments will allow for more investment in all areas of the game, including regional tournaments such as the European Championship, Americas Championship and MEA Championship, in addition to core capacity building and participation development projects.