The 2023 Rugby World Cup will be the tenth men’s Rugby World Cup, the quadrennial world championship for rugby union national teams. It is scheduled to take place in France from 8 September to 28 October 2023 in nine venues across the country and is the first to take place entirely in France. The opening game and final will take place at the Stade de France, north of Paris. The tournament will be held in the bicentenary year of the “invention” of the sport by William Webb Ellis. The trophy the teams play for is called the Webb Ellis Trophy in his honour.
Originally, the tournament was scheduled to last the usual six weeks, but in February 2021 World Rugby added a week to provide additional rest days for player welfare. This means that teams will have a minimum of five days’ rest for all matches. It will be the third time France has hosted the Rugby World Cup, having previously done so in 2007 and co-hosted the 1991 Rugby World Cup with England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. It precedes the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris and will take place less than a year before the Olympics opening ceremony.
The defending champions are South Africa, who defeated England in the 2019 Rugby World Cup Final.
Chile will make their first appearance and Portugal will return for their second appearance, 16 years after their first appearance in 2007, also held in France.
Rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. Rugby is simply based on running with the ball in hand. In its most common form, a game is played between two teams of 15 players each, using an oval-shaped ball on a rectangular field called a pitch. The field has H-shaped goalposts at both ends.
Rugby union is a popular sport around the world, played by all people regardless of gender, age or size. In 2014, there were more than 6 million people playing worldwide, of whom 2.36 million were registered players. World Rugby, previously called the International Rugby Football Board (IRFB) and the International Rugby Board (IRB), has been the governing body for rugby union since 1886, and currently has 101 countries as full members and 18 associate members.
In 1845, the first laws were written by students attending Rugby School; other significant events in the early development of rugby include the decision by Blackheath F.C. to leave The Football Association in 1863 and, in 1895, the split between rugby union and rugby league. Historically rugby union was an amateur sport, but in 1995 formal restrictions on payments to players were removed, making the game openly professional at the highest level for the first time.