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The Americas Rugby Championship (ARC) will act as Americas 1 and Americas 2 qualifiers for RWC 2023, notes Ignacio Chans for Uruguayan publication El Observador. Americas Rugby News has been independently informed that the existing agreement will be implemented as planned. An official announcement is forthcoming from World Rugby.
Such a policy is what World Rugby originally intended to determine the two direct qualifiers from the Americas for RWC 2023. This came under question by Sudamerica Rugby President Sebastián Piñeyrua as a result of divided voting in May’s World Rugby chairman voting.
South America is the World Rugby defined only region whose champion does not qualify directly for the RWC. This is the case despite Uruguay having a resumé that speaks for itself. Los Teros defeated Fiji at RWC 2019, won a series in Africa against Namibia in 2017 and had the better of Canada during the RWC 2015-2019 cycle.
Sudamérica Rugby had sought for the region to have an automatic qualifier for RWC 2023. This would divid the Americas 1 and Americas 2 to make them north and south. Such a scenario would mean that on of the USA and Canada would qualify directly for France 2023, with the other entering repechage.
Chans writes that this proposal was rejected by World Rugby chairman Bill Beaumont. The decision means that the 2021 and 2022 ARC competitions will be used to determine who is Americas 1 and Americas 2. These two sides will qualify for France 2023 with Americas 3 entering repechage.
Notwithstanding, this story has not yet concluded. Instead, Piñeyrua continues to push for South America 1 to be treated as equals to Africa 1. This explains why World Rugby has not yet finalized the Americas’ qualifying model.
The plans are for the qualifiers to include promotion an relegation between the ARC and the Americas Rugby Challenge (ARCh). This would mean that the winner of the ARC, whose last edition involved the Cayman Islands, Colombia, Mexico, Paraguay, joining five of the Argentina XV, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Uruguay and the USA.
The Argentina XV will compete in the ARC, but will not be involved in the qualifying itself. Los Pumas’ third place finish in their pool at RWC 2019 granted them automatic qualification for RWC 2023.
Uruguay’s ticket to RWC 2023 will come from the ARC or repechage. The same is to be true of fellow RWC 2019 competitors Canada and the USA. It is not all bad for South America though as, in theory, Uruguay could be Americas 1 or 2 with Brazil and Chile claiming the other spot or entering repechage.
