First Rugby World Club Cup scheduled for 2028 launch

Rugby is set for a historic first with the launch of the Rugby World Club Cup in June 2028, an ambitious global tournament designed to unite the best club teams from the northern and southern hemispheres.

The competition will be held every four years and aims to crown the world’s top professional club.

The Rugby World Club Cup will feature a 16-team format made up of:

Eight teams from the Investec Champions Cup
Seven teams from Super Rugby Pacific
One invited team from Japan’s Rugby League One

These teams will be split into four pools of four, followed by semi-finals and a grand final. Matches are expected to be played across major European cities, with Barcelona already under consideration as a host city.

To accommodate this new global tournament, changes will be made to the existing rugby calendar.

The knockout stages of the Champions Cup will be suspended in World Club Cup years, and domestic leagues including the Premiership, United Rugby Championship, and France’s Top 14 will move their finals to May, allowing June to be reserved for the World Club Cup.

This restructuring will enable teams to participate without overlapping existing league obligations, though it introduces new considerations for squad rotation and player workload.

The Rugby World Club Cup has been positioned as a transformative project aimed at increasing the visibility and commercial potential of elite club rugby.

The European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR) confirmed that the tournament will also take place in 2032, with the first two editions hosted in Europe.

EPCR Chairman Dominic McKay emphasised the ambition behind the initiative:

"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."

While rugby unions and governing bodies have largely supported the concept, several club coaches and player representatives have raised concerns about the tournament's impact on player welfare and club budgets.