Americas Rugby News Rugby news from across the Americas!
Rugby World Cup 2023 will feature 10 venues in nine French cities. The final confirmation of these venues is forthcoming. France will face Africa 1 and Americas 1 qualifiers plus Italy, and New Zealand in Pool A.
The RWC 2023 match schedule is also due out soon. Plans are for it to be launched in February with the ticket sales process beginning shortly thereafter. For the time being nine of the ten are official. They are the Nouveau Stade (Bordeaux), the Stade Pierre-Mauroy (Lille), the Parc Olympique Lyonnais (Lyon), the Stade Vélodrome (Marseille), the Stade de la Beaujoire (Nantes), the Stade de Nice (Nice), the Stade de France (Paris), the Stade Geoffroy-Guichard (St. Étienne), and the Stadium de Toulouse (Toulouse).
Claude Atcher, general manager of the organizing committee of RWC 2023 told Bleu Occitanie that France will play in Toulouse in November 2021 or November 2022. It will be France’s first test match in the city since 2016.
INFO – Coupe du Monde 2023 : le XV de France jouera au Stadium de #Toulouse en novembre 2021 ou 2022 #FBSport #RWC2023 #XVdeFrance
👉 https://t.co/dYd1ZLsuWV pic.twitter.com/wGzd2Kjy30
— France Bleu Occitanie (@bleuoccitanie) December 14, 2020
Toulouse is in the heartland of French rugby. It will play host to four or five pool matches at RWC 2023. It will not, however, host a match involving France. Atcher noted that Toulouse does not have the required capacity for the needs of the French test team in a home RWC. The Stadium de Toulouse: “would deprive 25,000 or 30,000 French people of a match of the Blues compared to other stadiums.”
Toulouse has a capacity of 33,150. As such, France will only play at venues with capacities at of greater than 58,000. In other words, France is to face Americas 1 at Lyon, Marseille or St Denis. This marks a change to RWC 2007; France faced Namibia in Toulouse.
The yet to be finalized venue will be in Métropole du Grand Paris. In RWC 2007 Paris had the Stade de France and the Parc des Princes. With a capacity of 48,000, the Parc de Princes will not host a RWC 2023 pool match involving France. The alternative is the home of Racing 92; La Défense Arena seats 32,000 for rugby.
| STADIUM | CITY | CAPACITY | |
| 1 | Stade de France | St. Denis (Paris) | 80,698 |
| 2 | Stade Vélodrome | Marseille | 67,000 |
| 3 | Parc Olympique Lyonnais | Lyon | 59,186 |
| 4 | Stade Pierre-Mauroy | Lille | 50,157 |
| 5 | Nouveau Stade | Bordeaux | 42,115 |
| 6 | Stade Geoffroy-Guichard | St. Étienne | 41,965 |
| 7 | Stade de la Beaujoire | Nantes | 35,322 |
| 8 | Stade de Nice | Nice | 35,169 |
| 9 | Stadium de Toulouse | Toulouse | 33,150 |
| 10 | TBA | Paris | TBA |
