Qatar is among four nations to have expressed an interest in staging the next Rugby League World Cup after France pulled out as hosts.
The organising committee conceded on Monday that they would be unable to stage the tournament in 2025 after failing to meet financial criteria set out by the French government, leaving the event at risk of a deficit.
The International Rugby League board held an emergency meeting on Wednesday to set out a strategy for seeking a replacement host, with a decision expected in July. However, the body’s chair, Troy Grant, revealed four nations have already expressed an interest in taking over from France including Qatar, which staged the men’s football World Cup last year.
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New Zealand, South Africa and Fiji have also stepped forward but Grant stressed that no option is off the table, including the prospect of delaying to 2026 or even cancelling altogether and planning for the 2029 tournament.
“We’ll be guiding each expression of interest to our committee and all those and any options will be presented, and proper due diligence will be done,” Grant said. “But the reality is the size of the tournament will have a bearing on what we do.
“There’s potential to move it out of this cycle and create a new cycle … everything is on the table. Everything is a possibility at this stage. All options are on the table as we understand that time is running out and we need to move quickly.”
Qatar has ramped up its interest in major sporting events and organisations in recent years. The Arab nation’s hosting of last year’s Fifa World Cup attracted global attention, while the Qatari billionaire, Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad al-Thani, has this week made an improved offer to purchase Manchester United. Elsewhere in football, Paris Saint-Germain is owned by Qatar Sports Investment. The gulf state will also host next year’s under-19s Asian Cup, as well as the 2030 Asian Games.
But a Qatar bid to bring rugby league to the middle east would be arguably its most interesting move yet. Grant was hesitant to discuss too much about Qatar’s preliminary expression of interest, though he did concede that the high temperatures around October and November, when the tournament would likely take place, could be a factor in any decision-making process.
“I haven’t looked at the temperatures there,” he said. “But ours would be slightly earlier than the football so seasonal conditions would be tough, I’d imagine. They’re the kind of factors we need to consider. We’ve no due diligence to give any expression of interest their due course of credit. We haven’t made any assessment in regards to the viability of them.”
Last year’s Rugby League World Cup in England saw the men’s, women’s and wheelchair tournaments run alongside each other to great acclaim. The plan had been for France to do the same but with a youth tournament included too. Grant admitted that if the World Cup is still held in 2025, that multi-tournament format will be difficult to replicate given the tight timescales involved in effectively repackaging and rebuilding an event in a different country within a little over two years.
“The uniqueness of three World Cups being run at the same time was something that drew record investment,” he said. “We’re the only sport that’s conducted our World Cup format like that and it stood us aside from other sports. It’s a massive selling point, so to abandon that strategy would be disappointing: but we have to be practical in any decisions we make going forward.”
