European Professional Club Rugby announces plans for World Club Cup in 2028
European Professional Club Rugby has announced the first World Club Cup will take place in 2028.
A tournament featuring the best club sides from both the northern and southern hemispheres, to be held every four years, has received unanimous backing from all the sport’s governing bodies.
Sixteen teams will qualify – eight from the Investec Champions Cup and the remainder drawn from Super Rugby Pacific and Japan.
Project
EPCR chairman Dominic McKay confirmed before Saturday’s Investec Champions Cup final between Northampton and Bordeaux in Cardiff that an idea mooted for “the last two or three years” will now be delivered.
McKay said: “We’ve been trying to work our way through this project to see if we can deliver it.
“And over the last few days we’ve had great meetings with our Board, great meetings with our General Assembly, who represent the three leagues (the TOP14, United Rugby Championship and English Premiership) and stakeholders from seven unions, and everyone is unanimous about wanting to deliver a World Club Cup – through EPCR.”
The tournament will launch in June 2028, elevating the Champions Cup knock-out rounds to the Rugby World Club Cup and “supercharging” the closing stages of the EPCR Challenge Cup, the EPCR said.
Competition
McKay added: “The Investec Champions Cup is the greatest club competition in the world, and we’re going to continue to protect that, nurture it and develop it further.
“We’ve got some ambitious plans for both the Investec Champions Cup and EPCR Challenge Cup, which we’ll unveil over the coming weeks.
“And, to elevate the whole of professional club rugby, we want to create this World Club Cup proposition in 2028 and 2032 with our friends from the South.
“We have these incredible competitions that we own and operate, and we want to find a way to elevate them further and bring in teams from Australia, from New Zealand, from Japan, and we’ll do that through the World Club Cup.”
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This corporate claptrap sounds similar to that of Wasps FC regarding them becoming the richest club in the world, until they soon disappeared with a £100 million debt. Sugar daddy clubs are destroying rugby because it takes players from where they are from, so we should extend and expand international rugby so that the money goes back to develop future players who aspire to play for their own national teams. 99% of the population couldn’t even name the teams involved in the club finals this weekend, so maybe this idea will go the same way as Wasps, considering the individual… Read more »
In a way professionalism has destroyed Welsh rugby. Odd thing to say I know. Since regionalism began it was supposed to be a panacea after lean years winning nothing. It was was to be a shot in the arm to better times for both clubs, Wales and the loyal long suffering fans. Initially it bared fruit. Wales won its first Grand Slams in 2005 under Mike Ruddock, a short period of despair occurred, then we entered the Garland golden age, and more titles came in quick succession. Our regions were competing at one point then started to falter, although the… Read more »
The ‘Regions’ were false entities that retarded back to the failing clubs that they were in reality. Going to 4 pro teams brought short term success, which could not continue as the ‘regions’ discarded huge parts of the country. The 2005-2019 4th Golden Era of Rygbi Cymru in a way eclipsed the previous 3, in that it happened in the new professional era, by an impoverished country that can’t even control its own affairs. England may have kicked us while we were down after Covid with their Woke Rugby Union replacing the Welsh Rugby Union. We now need to ditch… Read more »