Nations Championship 2026/27

The Nations Championship represents a significant restructuring of international rugby union, announced in October 2023 and approved by the World Rugby Council. Scheduled to launch in 2026, the tournament is a joint venture between World Rugby, Six Nations Rugby, and SANZAAR. It functions as a permanent fixture in the global calendar, replacing traditional mid-year and end-of-year test windows in even-numbered years rather than serving as a temporary experiment.

The competition features twelve teams split into two geographic pools. The Northern Hemisphere pool includes England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland, and Wales. The Southern Hemisphere pool comprises Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Japan, and Fiji. Each team plays every opponent from the opposite hemisphere once, resulting in three matches per side. The schedule is divided, with Northern Hemisphere teams travelling to the South in July 2026, while Southern Hemisphere teams travel to the North in November 2026. A finals weekend will be held at Twickenham Stadium in London in late November 2026, featuring the top-ranked team from each pool.

Broadcast rights for the 2026 and 2028 editions have been secured by TF1 in France. There is no single title sponsor for the global tournament name. The event merges the prestige of the Six Nations with the competitive depth of the Rugby Championship, creating a truly global championship that includes emerging rugby nations like Japan and Fiji, which are absent from the traditional European or Southern Hemisphere tournaments.

Governance for this new event is shared between World Rugby and the governing bodies of the traditional competitions. The tournament is designed to elevate the status of international rugby by providing a unified competition structure. Its biennial nature ensures it remains a central pillar of the sport’s development. The involvement of Japan and Fiji marks a shift towards broader global participation.