At 24, will the World Cup be more beautiful and crazier? This is obviously what World Rugby thinks, which approved this Tuesday the move to 24 participating nations, instead of 20 today, from the next Rugby World Cup, which will take place in 2027 in Australia. An enlargement which is not surprising given the declarations, a month ago, by Alan Gilpin to the British daily The Telegraph. “There are many reasons why expanding to 24 teams is the right thing to do,” confided the World Rugby CEO, already clearing up any suspense.
An expansion which aims first and foremost to further “universalize” the discipline. A choice reinforced by certain results during the 2023 edition, with the superb performance of Portugal, which beat Fiji (24-23) quarter-finalists. Even if, conversely, the boxes collected by Romania or Namibia tend to go in the other direction. But rather than only seeing the glass half empty, World Rugby has decided to favor the glass half full with this move to 24 teams, which will also have another considerable advantage: that of modifying the formula of the competition.
For the moment, the governing body of the oval has not communicated on the subject. But it appears very likely that there will be six pools of four teams and the establishment of round of 16 rounds for the first two in each group as well as the four best third-placed teams. Obviously, this is not going to upset the hierarchy. But this will already have the merit of shortening the duration of the World Cup by one week, while reducing the periods of time out without a match during the group stage. This is the end of what the France team experienced with 15 days of waiting between their match against Namibia and that against Italy. However, it is appropriate to wait a little longer before being sure that this formula will be the one retained for the 2027 edition.
