2025 Women's Rugby League World Cup

The 2025 Women's Rugby League World Cup will be the seventh staging of the Women's Rugby League World Cup, to be held in during October and November 2025.[1] The competition will run in parallel with the men's, wheelchair and under-19s tournaments.[2]

This article is about the women's tournament. For the men's tournament, see 2025 Rugby League World Cup.
2025 (2025) Women's Rugby League World Cup  ()
Number of teams16
Tournaments
 < 2021
2029 > 

The tournament will be competed for by 16 teams, double the number competing in the 2021 tournament.[3]

Host selection

The International Rugby League (IRL) originally decided in 2016 to have the tournaments hosted in North America, but the IRL withdrew the hosting rights due to the promoters, Moore Sports International, being unable to guarantee the staging of the tournaments.[4]

After re-opening the bidding to host the tournaments, the IRL awarded the hosting rights to France.[5] On 15 May 2023, the France 2025 organising committee was forced to withdraw from hosting the tournament.[6]

Qualification
Main article: 2025 Women's Rugby League World Cup qualification

The 2025 tournament will be the first time the Women's World Cup has held a qualifying competition. Regional allocations have been made; six European countries will be represented with another six from the Asia-Pacific countries; three places will be given to countries in North and South America and the final place will go to a country from the Middle East-Africa region.[7] As the eight teams competing in the 2021 tournament all pre-qualify for the 2025 competition and France are automatically included as the host nation, three of the European, two of the Americas places and four of the Asia-Pacific places are already known.[7]

In mid-July 2022, the International Rugby League announced further details regarding qualification, including qualification tournaments and the expected participating teams in those tournaments.[8]

Team Method of
qualification		 Date of
qualification		 Previous
appearance		 Last
time
qualified		 Current
consecutive
appearances		 Previous best
performance
 Brazil 2021 World Cup participants 18 July 2019 1 2021 2 Group Stage (2021)
 Canada 2 2021 3 Semi Finals (2017)
 Australia 6 2021 7 Champions (2013, 2017, 2021)
 Cook Islands 3 2021 3 Group Stage (2003, 2017, 2021)
 New Zealand 6 2021 7 Champions (2000, 2003, 2008)
 Papua New Guinea 2 2021 3 Semi Finals (2021)
 England 4[lower-alpha 1] 2021 5 Third / Semi Finals (2008, 2013, 2017, 2021)
 France 3 2021 2 Fourth (2013)
 Fiji,  Samoa, or  Tonga Top two teams in the Asia-Pacific Qualification Tournament 2024
 Greece,  Ireland,  Italy,  Malta,  Netherlands,[lower-alpha 2]  Serbia,  Turkey, or  Wales Top two teams from the two groups of the European Qualification Tournament 2023
 Chile,  Jamaica, or  United States Winner of the Americas Qualification Tournament 2024
 Cameroon,  Ghana,  Lebanon,  Morocco,  Nigeria, or  South Africa Winner of the Middle East - Africa Qualification Tournament 2024

Competitions

Seeing an increase from three in 2021, the 2025 World Cup alongside the primary have three other tournaments occurring simultaneously. Alongside the women's 2025 Rugby League World Cup sits the men's, wheelchair and youth world cups.[9]

Notes
  1. Plus two as  Great Britain
  2. Replaced Russia following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.

References
  1. "2025 Rugby League World Cup: France promises low carbon event after being named host". SportsPro. 11 January 2022. Retrieved 25 March 2022.
  2. "France 2025: 13 questions answered about the Rugby League World Cup". the Guardian. 19 January 2022. Retrieved 25 March 2022.
  3. Gordon, James (24 March 2022). "France 2025: World Cup qualifying places confirmed". LoveRugbyLeague. Retrieved 25 March 2022.
  4. Adrian Proszenko (4 December 2018). "US World Cup hosting plans torpedoed by money trouble". Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 25 March 2022.
  5. "France to host 2025 Rugby League World Cup 71 years after hosting sport's first showpiece in 1954". Sky Sports. 11 January 2022. Retrieved 25 March 2022.
  6. "IRL statement on France 2025 withdrawal". International Rugby League. 15 May 2023. Retrieved 16 May 2023.
  7. Gordon, James (24 March 2022). "France 2025: World Cup qualifying places confirmed". LoveRugbyLeague. Retrieved 25 March 2022.
  8. "Road To France 2025 Announced". European Rugby League. 16 Jul 2022. Retrieved 15 Jul 2022.
  9. https://www.loverugbyleague.com/post/everything-you-need-to-now-france-rugby-league-world-cup/
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