Nations Championship gets official go ahead for 2026 start
Two-tier tournament will pit two groups of six from each hemisphere in the top tier, with a Grand Final every two years
By Charles Richardson, Rugby Reporter 1 July 2023 ? 12:14pm
The ?Nations Championship?, a biennial international rugby tournament pitting teams from the Six Nations against their southern-hemisphere counterparts, is due to start in 2026, the governing bodies have announced.
Both Six Nations Rugby and SANZAAR, the organisation which governs South Africa, New Zealand, Australia and Argentina, released statements on Saturday morning announcing that they were working collaboratively on a new competition which will take place in the existing July and November international windows - to take place in alternate years, to avoid a clash with the World Cup and Lions tours.
The two governing bodies will own and operate the tournament, which will feature the ten sides over which they preside, with two further spaces reserved for two invitational unions. The club calendar, Six Nations and Rugby Championship are unaffected by the new competition, although the grand final will be staged on a fourth weekend in November, which will involve a change to
World Rugby?s regulations.
A statement from Six Nations rugby added that international rugby players had been ?involved at every stage of developing the new competition?.
?This connection has been key in supporting the wider conversations around the club and international calendar taking place in parallel, and to ensure player welfare has remained a fundamental priority in all decision making,? the statement said.
Regarding the two guest nations, Six Nations Rugby said: ?A transparent selection process will be managed by SANZAAR, supported by World Rugby and the International Rugby Players, to determine these two invitational unions.?
The sport?s chiefs believe building a sense of narrative in the July and November windows will provide a greater commercial model. Six Nations Rugby believes that the tournament would ?genuinely excite players and bring new fans to the game?.
World Rugby?s council will give the sign-off to the proposal in October, although concerns remain for several emerging nations. While the statement said that the tournament would ?contribute towards a valuable pathway for teams, and will support ambitions to sustain and grow the global game?, promotion and relegation would not be introduced until 2030. Countries such as Georgia, therefore, could potentially find themselves devoid of top-level opposition until then. Telegraph Sport understands, too, that the Lelos governing body was not part of tournament negotiations.
?We welcome these exciting plans for a new international league competition,? Loseb (Soso) Tkemaladze, president of the Georgian Rugby Union, said. ?We have faith that World Rugby will bring in developments that are beneficial for the game as a whole and further its development globally.
?From a Georgian perspective what we need is further, faster development. We are loyal team players and grateful to WR for the support we have been given. What?s clear now is that we need more games against Tier One opposition. That is what we expect and we trust the institution to deliver.?
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