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Rugby has been given a wake-up call as the FIFA World Cup has expanded to 48 teams. Tuesday’s announcement that the 2026 FIFA World Cup would be increased from 32 to 48 participants sees it having more than double that of rugby’s showpiece event.
FIFA World Cup Expansion
The FIFA World Cup was born in 1930. Uruguay hosted and won the inaugural competition. Involved were 13 countries. The number of teams changed from 1930-1950 before being stable at 16 in 1954.
In 1982 this changed with 24 teams competing in the Spain-hosted tournament. In 1998 France’s second opportunity at hosting was a 32-team event. Central to this change was allowing more teams from Africa, Asia and North America to take part.
The decision to expand to 48 teams was talked about in 2013. FIFA President at the time, Sepp Blatter, spoke of guaranteeing the Caribbean Football Union’s region a position in the World Cup.
Rugby World Cup Expansion
The Rugby World Cup is much younger. The inaugural tournament was played in 1987. It was a 16-team event with four pools of four teams.
When the 1995 tournament was played it was evident that the model required altering. Missing were both Fiji and the USA. Neither was able to qualify due to the allocated regional qualifying spots going to Samoa, Tonga, Argentina and Canada. 20 teams for 1999 was thereby a requirement even before the first game of professional rugby was played.
Wales 1999 used a model of five pools of four. The confusing set-up did not survive. A model of four pools of five was introduced for 2003. The model continues until today and will be used in Japan 2019.
Expansion to 24 teams for 2023 has been strongly hinted at by World Rugby boss Brett Gosper. Brazil, China, Germany, India, Japan, Mexico, Spain and the USA have all been named by Gosper as key markets for the future.
While considering why these countries have been identified it is also useful to look at who are rugby’s powerful teams at World Cups. The answer could not be more telling. Reigning champions, New Zealand has a population of under 4.5 million. Fellow 2015 Quarter Finalists Ireland, Scotland and Wales are also well below 10 million.
Competitors Georgia, Namibia and Uruguay also had populations under 5 million. Fiji with under 1 million competed as did both Samoa and Tonga who have populations of less than 200,000 each. The potential for commercial opportunity in the latter two of these countries is virtually nil.
Ending Selective Rugby World Cup Qualification
Namibia and Uruguay both debuted in Rugby World Cup 1999. Both also competed in Rugby World Cup 2015. Namibia played in the three tournaments in between hand while Uruguay did so only in 2003. Uruguay missed out on qualifying for 2007 and 2011 based on South America 1 having a tougher path than Africa 1.
FIFA’s expansion was to end such geographical limitations. Rugby must act similarly, making Rugby World Cup 2023 a 24-team tournament. South America would be given an automatic qualifying slot while Europe would get one more than at present. The 2015 repechage finalists, Uruguay and Russia could thus both qualify.
The next two in line from both South America and Europe would join teams from Africa, Asia, Europe, Oceania and North America in competing for the remaining places. Kenya, Zimbabwe, South Korea, Hong Kong, Chile, Brazil, Spain, Germany, the Cook Islands, Papua New Guinea, Trinidad & Tobago and Mexico would, having advanced in the regional stage, compete in qualification finals.
Of these twelve countries four happen to all have been named by Gosper as priorities. The Cook Islands has a tiny populations ell under 100,000 while the next smallest is Trinidad & Tobago with 1.3 million. Hong Kong and Papua New Guinea both have populations slightly above 7 million. Of the remaining eight Zimbabwe has the smallest population with 14 million.
International results and World Rankings suggest that these would be the likely teams to compete at an expanded World Cup. The market sizes of them is overwhelmingly extremely encouraging for World Rugby. They fit into the rhetoric of Gosper.
Round of 16
For rugby fans World Cup there is to be one gain that nobody is likely to criticize – additional play-off’s. An expansion to 24 countries would allow for an additional round of play-off’s. With six pools of four eight teams would be eliminated in the pool phase with the 16 others competing in the round of 16, an elimination round prior to the Quarter Finals.
