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World Rugby has confirmed the qualification model for Rugby World Cup 2023. The France-hosted tournament will be a 20-team competition, operating on the same model as that of Japan 2019.
As was the case in RWC 2019, RWC 2023 has eight qualifying slots. The eight successful teams will join the twelve sides that qualified automatically based on finishing in the top three of their pools in Japan 2019.
As pictured below the twelve automatic qualifiers are South Africa, England, New Zealand, Wales, Japan, France, Australia, Ireland, Scotland, Italy, Argentina and Fiji.
The Americas is guaranteed to have no fewer than three participants. Argentina will be joined by two qualifying teams from the 2022 Americas Rugby Championship (ARC). This is a repeat of prior RWCs under the existing model. In the RWC 2019 qualifiers the USA and Uruguay qualified as Americas 1 and 2 while for RWC 2015 Canada did so in place of Uruguay.
Canada qualified for RWC 2019 via repechage and Uruguay did so for RWC 2015. This pathway has been retained for RWC 2023 to thereby see the Americas again having four participants at the World Cup in France.
Also allocated two qualifying places is Europe. With Georgia not qualifying automatically for RWC 2023 this means that there will be a ferocious contest involving Georgia, Romania, Russia and Spain, among others, for two places. Of note is Germany performed well in the 2019 qualifiers, facing Canada in the repechage finals.
Oceania will have one direct spot, but realistically two. The winner of Samoa vs Tonga will qualify with the loser facing an Asia / Pacific opponent to determine who qualifies as Oceania 2. This is a far easier pathway than that of Europe or the Americas.
Africa has one allocated spot, Africa 1. The team that wins the 2022 Rugby Africa Cup will qualify directly for France 2023. The runner-up will enter repechage, joining Americas 3, Europe 3 and Asia / Pacific 1 in the winner-takes-it-all Repechage play-off’s series in November 2022.
