Rugby League World Cup

The Rugby League World Cup is an international rugby league tournament contested by the top national men's representative teams. The tournament is administered by the International Rugby League and was first held in France in 1954, which was the first World Cup held for any form of rugby football.

The idea of a rugby league World Cup tournament was first mooted in the 1930s with the French proposal to hold a tournament in 1931, and again in 1951. The tournament's structure, frequency, and size has varied significantly throughout its history. The winners are awarded the Paul Barrière Trophy, named after Paul Barrière, the French Rugby League President of the 1940s and 1950s. Three nations have won the tournament; twelve times,  three times, and  once. Australia has been in the final of every World Cup, except the first in 1954, when they came third, which was considered to be a complete upset with the bookmakers at the time having Australia as strong favourites.

The latest World Cup was held in England in 2022 after being delayed by a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

1935–1960: Establishment and triennial competitions


The Rugby League World Cup was an initiative of the French who had been campaigning for a competition since 1935. The idea was raised in 1951 by Paul Barrière, the President of the French Rugby League. In 1952, Rugby Football League secretary Bill Fallowfield persuaded the Rugby League Council to support the concept. At a meeting in Blackpool, England in 1953, the International Board accepted Paul Barrière's proposal that France should be the nation to host the first tournament to be officially known as the "Rugby World Cup". In addition to the hosts, the tournament featured teams from Britain, Australia and New Zealand. The 1954 Rugby League World Cup was won by Great Britain who defeated France in Paris on 13 November to claim the title.

Following the success of the maiden World Cup three years later another tournament was held in Australia, marking 50 years of rugby league in the country. Unlike the previous tournament, teams played each other in a league format. It was then decided that the team that finished first in the league would be declared the winner. Australia proved victorious on their home ground.

Another three years would pass until the next World Cup in 1960, this time held in England. It would be the second time Great Britain won the competition. Despite a home nation victory the World Cup suffered from poor crowds due to the live broadcast of games for the first time.

1960–1977: Sporadic competitions
After a disappointing attendances in 1960, the World Cup would not be played for another eight years. The competition had been scheduled to be held in France in 1965, this time with the inclusion of the South African team. However, after an unsuccessful tour of Australia, the French withdrew, effectively postponing the tournament until 1968, when Australia and New Zealand hosted and the World Cup final made a return.

The World Cup found more success in the 70s with four tournaments being played. The first, the 1972 World Cup where the final was contested between Great Britain and Australia ended 10–10, and the title was awarded to Great Britain by virtue of their superior record in the qualifiers. Great Britain were captained by Welshman Clive Sullivan who was the first black player to captain any British national sports team. The final at the Stade de Gerland in Lyon witnessed what is (as of 2021) the last British team to win the Rugby League World Cup.

In 1975, the competition underwent a radical overhaul with the tournament being held across multiple confederations. Great Britain was split into England and Wales due to Wales wanting to showcase the high level of talent they had on offer that year (no Scottish or Irish players made the original Great Britain squad). This resulted in the tournament increasing from four teams to five for the first time. There was not a final held to decide the champions of the 1975 tournament and so Australia won by virtue of topping the group standings. As Australia had not beaten England in that tournament a final challenge match was hastily arranged which Australia would win 25–0.

In 1977, Great Britain competed again as a single entity. Although the final between Australia and Great Britain was a closely fought affair, public interest in the tournament waned due to the continuing tinkering with the format and it was not held again until the mid-1980s.

1982–1994: No host nation
From 1985 to 1988, each nation played each other a number of times on a home and away basis with a number of these games also being considered part of various international tours that took place during the years in which these world cups were being played. At the end of that period, Australia met New Zealand at Eden Park. The match was a physical encounter, and Australian captain Wally Lewis played part of the match with a broken arm. The Kangaroos won the competition 25–12 in front of a capacity crowd of nearly 48,000 spectators.

This format was repeated from 1989 to 1992 (with games once again also being part of tours) and Australia won again, defeating Great Britain 10–6 at Wembley Stadium in front of 73,361 people. This crowd remained a Rugby League World Cup record (and a record for any rugby league international match) until beaten by the 74,468 crowd which attended the 2013 World Cup final at Old Trafford. The fifth nation to compete in these two tournaments was Papua New Guinea, where rugby league is the national, and most popular, sport.

1995: Birth of the modern World Cup
In 1995, the competition was held in England and Wales. It was again restructured, returning to the traditional "host / co-host" format, and intended (like in 1954) to be a triennial competition. The tournament expanded to ten teams with Fiji, Samoa, South Africa, and Tonga making their world cup deputes. Great Britain had also split permanently into England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, although only England and Wales qualified. Unlike previous tournaments where the top two teams in the table played in the final, a knockout stage was added, with quarter and semi-finals. Due to the Super League war, players aligned with the Super League competition were not selected by the ARL to represent Australia, which meant the absence of many star players. The tournament, which was also held to celebrate the centenary of the sport, saw over 250,000 people attending the group stages and over 66,000 people attending the final, in which Australia defeated England 16–8.

2000: Super League delay, financial issues, and hiatus
Intended for 1998, the next World Cup was delayed for two years due to the Super League war and the subsequent re-structuring of rugby league's international governing bodies meant that the proposed 1998 World Cup was postponed.

In 2000, the World Cup was held in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and France, and expanded the field further, with sixteen teams entering. This tournament included a New Zealand Maori representative team, the only time this team has taken part, as well as debuts for the Cook Islands, Ireland, Russia, and Scotland. Australia won the tournament by beating New Zealand 40–12 in the final at Old Trafford, Manchester. In the same year, the first Women's Rugby League World Cup was held, with New Zealand defeating Great Britain in the final.

Numerous issues, including poor organization and blown-out scorelines, meant that this tournament was seen as highly unsuccessful with an average attendance just half that of the previous tournament. Due to these problems the competition was put on indefinite hiatus and replaced with the Rugby League Tri-Nations.

2008: Re-establishment and regular competitions


After the failure of the 2000 World Cup, no plans were made for another tournament until 2008 with the competition reverting to a 10-team format. The tournament also moved from every three to every four years inline with most other major international sports competitions. Australia hosted the tournament and New Zealand were crowned champions for the first time by beating the host nation at Lang Park, Brisbane. The tournament was once again seen as a success with a 91% average attendance increase on the previous competition. New Zealand became only the third team to win the world cup and the first other than Australia since 1972.

2013: Olympic delay and tournament growth
2013 saw England and Wales host the tournament and expanded to 14 teams. The tournament, originally scheduled for 2012, was moved very early in its organisation to 2013 due to the United Kingdom hosting the 2012 Summer Olympics. The competition was considered the most successful competition since 1995 in terms of attendances, exposure and financial output. The tournament saw Italy and the United States play in their first world cup. Australia took the title again after defeating New Zealand in the final by a score of 34–2. The final attendance became the record international rugby league attendance at 74,468.

2017: Continued growth
2017 Rugby League World Cup taking place in Australia, New Zealand and for the first time in Papua New Guinea. While Australia would claim the title once again and for an eleventh time, the tournament was considered highly successful in terms of competitiveness. The tournament would see Tonga beat New Zealand in the group stages with a score of 28–22 to top the group, the first time a team from outside the top 3 had beaten a top 3 nation in over two decades. New Zealand went on to play Fiji in the quarter-finals and lost once again with a score of just 4–2, knocking New Zealand out in the quarter-finals, the first time a tier 1 nation had exited the tournament at this early stage. Tonga played England in the semi-finals and while conceding 20 unanswered points, they would score 3 tries in just the last seven minutes to pull the score back to 20–18, eventually losing by this close margin. The final was contested between Australia and England at Lang Park, Brisbane and Australia won by just 6–0, the lowest score in world cup final history.

2021: Further growth despite COVID-19 impact


England were chosen to host the 2021 tournament which was postponed to 2022 due to Australia and New Zealand withdrawing due to the COVID-19 pandemic. with organisers expressing a desire to see a total of one million fans attend games. This tournament saw the number of teams increased to 16 once again, with Greece and Jamaica debuting in the competition. In 2021, the women's and wheelchair competitions were given equal prominence with the men's tournament, as a result all three competition were run simultaneously for the first time. Australia again won the competition, beating final debutants Samoa 30–10. The 2021 tournament was the most watched rugby league world cup in history, and was regarded as a sporting, commercial, and social success by the IRL.

2025/26: Hosting issues
A proposal was put forward in 2016 to hold the 2025 Rugby League World Cup in the United States and Canada,  but in December 2018 plans for the tournament to be held in North America were scrapped due to financial concerns.

On 11 January 2022, it was announced France would host the tournament in 2025,   however on 15 May 2023 France pulled out of hosting the tournament after the French government withdrew financial support. A day later, New Zealand announced they were considering a bid, but would possibly require a delay to 2026.

On 3 August, the IRL announced that the tournament would be postponed to 2026 and held in the southern hemisphere with only 10 teams taking part.

2030
With the announcement of the 2025 World Cup being moved to 2026 came confirmation that the following competition would be held in 2030. In the announcement International Rugby League confirmed that the tournament would be held once again as a stand alone competition with the women's and wheelchair tournaments held separately in 2028 and 2029 respectfully, all on a four-year cycle.

Trophy
The World Cup trophy was commissioned by French Fédération Française de Rugby à XIII president Paul Barrière at a cost of eight million francs, and then donated to the International Rugby League Board to be used for the inaugural competition in 1954. This trophy was used and presented to the winning nation for the first four tournaments, before being stolen in 1970. After its recovery, the trophy was reinstated for the 2000 tournament.

Qualification
Qualifying rounds were first introduced for the 2000 World Cup. Hosts and teams reaching the knockout rounds of the previous tournament automatically qualify for the next. The remaining spots are achieved through regional qualification tournaments, split between the four International Rugby League confederation Asia-Pacific, Americas, Europe, and Middle East-Africa. Because of a changeing number of teams making the finals and entering the qualifiers, and the unpredictability of the geographic spread of teams automatically qualifying, the format of the qualification tournament has changed with each edition of the tournament.

Finals
The Rugby League World Cup has followed a varied range of formats throughout its history as the number of teams participating has increased.

The current format has been in use since the 2021 tournament, in addition to the 2000 tournament. This format features 16 teams split into four groups of four playing a single round robin. Each team is awarded two points for a win and one point for a draw. The top two teams from each group qualify for the knockout stage.

The eight teams in the quarter-finals play each other with the four winners progressing to the semi-finals before the World Cup final. If the teams are level after 80 minutes extra time will be played and if the two teams are still level after extra time, a golden point will be played.

This will be temporary altered for the 2026 tournament due to its late rescheduling, the exact format to be used remains unknown.

Hosts
Due to the early World Cups being contested between Australia, England, France and New Zealand and the fact rugby league is most popular in these regions they have regularly hosted the World Cup between themselves. World Cups in 1985–88 and 1989–92 were all jointly hosted by the four founding nations.

New Zealand has never solely hosted a World Cup but they have co-hosted with Australia on three occasions with 2017 also jointly co-hosted with Papua New Guinea. England have co-hosted once with Wales in 2013 although the 2000 World Cup was played across the UK as well as some games in Ireland and France.

France hosted the first World Cup in 1954 and again in 1972 as well as hosting games at the 2000 and 2013 World Cups.

Despite the World Cup mainly being hosted by England, Australia, France and New Zealand, countries such as UAE, South Africa and the United States and Canada have applied to host the tournament in the past.


 * Co-hosted between confederation

NB: As Great Britain was the IRL nation until 1995, the United Kingdom is used to refer to host nations before this time regardless of the number of home nations which actually hosted the tournament.

Stadiums
In total, 81 stadiums have hosted world cup games over the 14 tournaments. Headingley Stadium in Leeds has hosted the tournament the most times, having had games in 7 world cups with Central Park, Wigan and Lang Park, Brisbane having hosted 6 tournaments. 52 stadiums have hosted matches in just 1 tournament. The most stadiums used in a tournament was in 2000 when 26 stadiums were used; the stadium capacity was the highest ever at 704,400. However, the occupancy was also the lowest ever at just 37.46%.

The largest stadium in terms of capacity ever used was Wembley Stadium, London with a seating capacity of 90,000; the stadium was used in the 2013 tournament as the venue for the semi-final double-header. The smallest stadium ever used was also in 2013 when The Gnoll, Neath, with a capacity of 5,000 hosted a game between Wales and Cook Islands. Despite this, it was not the lowest attended game; this was in the 2000 World Cup when just 1,497 attended the game between Wales and Lebanon at Stradey Park, Llanelli.

The cities with the most stadiums used are Sydney and London with 4 each. Hull and Auckland are the cities with the next highest number with 3 each.

Summary
In total, 21 teams have competed at the World Cup. Of these, only three have won the World Cup, with Australia being by far the most successful with 12 titles. Great Britain has won three titles, however since 1995 have competed separately as England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. New Zealand became only the third team to win the World Cup in 2008. England, France and Samoa are the only teams to have played in the final and not won. Wales' best result was third under the old format and have made the semi-finals twice while Fiji have appeared in three while Tonga have made the semi-finals just once. Papua New Guinea achieved fourth place under the old format and have made it to three quarter-finals. Four other teams; Ireland, Lebanon, Scotland and the USA have all made the quarter-finals bringing the total amount of teams to reach the knockout stage to 14.
 * Tournaments between 1954–1992 did not feature semi-final and quarter-final rounds.

Match attendance
Top 10 match attendances.