The European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR) club competition organizing body has confirmed that it will launch its first Rugby World Club Cup in 2028 after unanimous agreement from leagues and unions.
Ahead of the EPCR Champions Cup final between Northampton Saints and Union Bordeaux-Begles in Cardiff on Saturday (May 24), EPCR chairman Dominic McKay announced three leagues – the United Rugby Championship, France's Top 14, and the English Premiership – as well as seven unions from the EPCR Board and General Assembly had unanimously approved the creation of a Rugby World Club Cup, paving the way for an inaugural edition in 2028.
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The tournament will take place every four years and feature 16 teams – eight from the top-tier Champions Cup and seven drawn from the Super Rugby Pacific competition (featuring sides from New Zealand, Australia, Fiji, and the Pacific Islands), while one team will come from Japan.
McKay has said: “This is something we've spoken about at EPCR for the last two or three years – 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 and stakeholders from seven unions, and everyone is unanimous about wanting to deliver a World Club Cup, through EPCR.”
The EPCR organizes the Champions Cup and second-tier EPCR Challenge Cup, which involves teams from England, France, Ireland, Wales, Scotland, South Africa, and Italy.
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By GlobalDataThe first Rugby World Club Cup is scheduled for June 2028, with the Champions Cup knockout rounds now becoming part of the new tournament. However, McKay has reiterated the organizing body’s commitment to continue the Champions Cup.
He added: “The 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.
“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, New Zealand, and Japan, and we’ll do that through the World Club Cup.”
The announcement comes as soccer's international governing body, FIFA, prepares to stage its revamped Club World Cup in the US from June 14 to July 13, featuring 32 clubs from around the world.
Elsewhere, the EPCR has extended its French broadcast rights tie-up with heavyweight pay-TV network BeIN Sports.
Through the deal, running through 2029-30, BeIN will continue as the exclusive French broadcaster of the Champions Cup and Challenge Cup. The current agreement between the two parties came into effect for the 2022-23 season and was due to expire after 2025-26 (this, therefore, is an early extension).
The new deal was unveiled in advance of the 2024-25 Champions Cup final, in which French side Bordeaux Begles won, defeating England’s Northampton 28-20. It gets underway for the 2025-26 season.
The last five editions of the Champions Cup have all been won by French teams, and that nation is generally seen as the strongest on the continent in terms of club rugby.
For the next five years, BeIN customers in France will be able to watch every game contested by a domestic side in the Champions Cup, alongside “at least two matches” of teams from that country in the Challenge Cup (as well as “the best matches” of that second-tier competition).
France Televisions, the public-service broadcaster in that country, also holds EPCR club competition rights, showing two Champions Cup games and one Challenge Cup fixture each matchday. That deal also runs between 2022-23 and 2025-26, and media reports over the last few days have suggested an extension is imminent.
In terms of recent BeIN rights deals in France, earlier this month the broadcaster extended its deal for English soccer’s knockout FA Cup competition through 2025-26. BeIN has covered the FA Cup live for French audiences since 2012, and will show next year's competition exclusively in the territory.
