The 2025 Rugby League World Cup is in serious doubt after the hosts, France, confirmed they would not be able to stage the tournament. France had been preparing to be sole hosts of the event for the first time since they held it in 1972, but have pulled out after funding cuts from the French government.
The government had demanded a guarantee concerning the possibility of the tournament making a loss. Conditions initially set to secure the economic viability of the event were not fulfilled and, despite being given additional time to secure funding, the organising committee was unable to do so. That left them unable to commit to hosting and plummeting into doubt the biggest event in world rugby league.
The International Rugby League will now convene at a board meeting this summer to consider alternative options for host nations in 2025. That could include New Zealand or a possible joint bid from Pacific nations including Samoa and Tonga, though the latter is unlikely because of the logistical implications required to stage a tournament at such short notice.
The Guardian understands England will almost certainly not bid, with the significant government funding that helped to stage the tournament last year unlikely to be repeated again so soon.
Troy Grant, the chair of the IRL, said: “The Rugby League World Cup in France in 2025 was always an ambitious project given the unprecedented short lead‑in time due to the pandemic. However, it had the advantage of following and leveraging off the widely acknowledged RLWC2021 success.
“The factors that impacted on the bid team’s ability to complete the early structure of the tournament, such as the economic crisis and, in particular, inflationary pressure on host town council budgets, undermined their ability to secure adequate securities for the event to satisfy the government’s strict conditional benchmarks put forward from the beginning of the process for the tournament to proceed.
“I respect the French government’s decision amid the challenges they are facing but I can’t hide my disappointment. We will now accelerate our consideration of other contingency options.”
The tournament was expected to be the biggest in history, played across 40 venues with men’s, women’s, wheelchair and youth events running alongside one another. But with such a short space of time until the event was due to take place, the prospect of the World Cup being pushed back to 2026 seems increasingly likely.
