Inaugural Rugby Club World Cup to kickoff in 2028

News broke via The Times this weekend that the competition will finally take place after years of speculation, and now we will get to see the best teams across both Hemispheres compete against each other in direct competition.

Club World Cups are a growing trend within the sporting landscape, with the inaugural FIFA Club World Cup set to take place later this year, and now rugby is following suit.

The new competition will see eight teams from the Champions Cup, seven from Super Rugby Pacific and one from Japan go head-to-head once every four years to be crowned the Club World Champions.

"It's great to be in Cardiff celebrating the 30th season of the Investec Champions Cup and the EPCR Challenge Cup," said EPCR Chairman Dominic McKay.

"We've had some great discussions over the course of the weekend talking about the future of our sport and particularly some exciting projects that relate to EPCR. One of those projects is the Rugby World Club Cup.

"This is something we've spoken about at EPCR for the last two or three years - we've been trying to work our way through this project to see if we can deliver it.

"And over the last few days we've had great meetings with our Board, great meetings with our General Assembly, who represent the three leagues and stakeholders from seven unions, and everyone is unanimous about wanting to deliver a World Club Cup - through EPCR.

"The Investec Champions Cup is the greatest club competition in the world, and we're going to continue to protect that, nurture it and develop it further. We've got some ambitious plans for both the Investec Champions Cup and EPCR Challenge Cup, which we'll unveil over the coming weeks.

"And, to elevate the whole of professional club rugby, we want to create this World Club Cup proposition in 2028 and 2032 with our friends from the South. We have these incredible competitions that we own and operate, and we want to find a way to elevate them further and bring in teams from Australia, from New Zealand, from Japan, and we'll do that through the World Club Cup.

"So, once every four years, starting off in 2028, we're going to bring the greatest clubs from the southern hemisphere to battle it out against the greatest clubs in the northern hemisphere â- and who wouldn't want to find out who the greatest club in the world is as a consequence of that.

"We're so excited about this as a project. Our stakeholders, our leagues, and our unions are so excited about delivering a World Club Cup. We'll be sharing more information over the course of the summer, and we'll do that in conjunction with our friends from the south.

"To reassure everyone, we've thought about this from a player's perspective, from a fan's perspective, and from a future fan's perspective. We believe the fans of the future want to see the greatest clubs come together. They already have that in Europe and South Africa for the Investec Champions Cup and EPCR Challenge Cup, so we want to broaden the family a bit further. It promises to be absolutely box office.

"I couldn't be more thrilled that our stakeholders are supporting us and we look forward to sharing more information with the players and our fans in the coming weeks and months."

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