Rugby's first Club World Cup to take place in 2028
The inaugural edition of a 16-team Club World Cup is expected to take place at the end of the 2027-28 season after discussions in Cardiff on Friday.
Telegraph Sport understands that arrangements are all but finalised, with just final contracts to be determined following a meeting of the European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR) board ahead of this weekend's Challenge Cup and Investec Champions Cup finals.
The 16 contestants will comprise the eight Champions Cup quarter-finalists, the top seven finishers of Super Rugby Pacific and one team invited from the top tier of Japanese Rugby League One. It has been proposed that there will be four pools of four teams leading to a semi-final and a final.
Club World Cups will replace the knockout stages of the Champions Cup every four years and will require major leagues involved – the Top 14, the Premiership, the United Rugby Championship (URC) and Super Rugby Pacific – to alter their schedules in those seasons.
For the Top 14, the Premiership and the URC, this will mean shifting their own play-offs forward to create space. The Club World Cup will then foreshadow Test matches in the biennial Nations Cup that is due to begin in 2026.
The first two editions of the Club World Cup, in 2028 and 2032, have been slated for Europe with the aim of a 'destination venue' such as Barcelona under consideration as host.
As an example, were a Club World Cup to be held this season, the Champions Cup qualifiers would be Bordeaux-Bègles, Northampton Saints, Toulouse, Leinster, Munster, Toulon, Castres and Glasgow Warriors.
Crusaders, Brumbies, Chiefs, Hurricanes, Reds, Moana Pasifika and Blues make up the top seven of Super Rugby Pacific. Japan's top competition, meanwhile, has reached the semi-final stage. Brave Lupus Tokyo are hosting Kobe Steelers with Saitama Wild Knights taking on Spears Tokyo Bay.
The introduction of a Club World Cup has been a long time coming. Back in 2022, Bill Sweeney, the chief executive of the Rugby Football Union who sits on the EPCR board, suggested that it could be a Ryder Cup-style catalyst for excitement around the sport.
'It just will heighten excitement and awareness around the game,' Sweeney said. 'Fans are looking for new formats, new things to talk about. This summer there was a lot of talk around the north-south rivalry, there was almost a Ryder Cup situation towards the end there, in terms of was it going to be 6-6 or would the north win all of those final matches on the final weekend.
'There seems to be more conversation around that and [the Club World Cup] just adds to that in terms of who has the best clubs in the world, the best club set-up, is it the north or the south. Seeing some of those club powerhouses compete against each other, the clubs look forward to that.'
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