The Rugby Football Union (RFU), England’s governing body for rugby, has announced that they will be bidding to host the Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025. Following this, they would be rivalling France in January as it is when World Rugby will be accepting the bids for hosting the 2025 Women’s World Cup.
England last hosted the Women’s Rugby World Cup in 2010, where they reached the final but lost to New Zealand in the final, played at Stoop. However, England was successful to lift the trophy in 2014 as they defeated Canada, with the competition taking place in France.
The RFU has a multi-city and multi-regional plan for delivering the 2025 World Cup, meaning that the matches will be played all across the country. While the central theme of bidding for the 2025 World Cup is RFU planning to execute a legacy program.
This legacy program has a three-year plan starting from 2022 till 2025, in which RFU looks to build a strong Women’s Rugby team. The Football Union will be working on the development of facilities and advancing the stadiums in this program.
While the main purpose is to attract young girls to the game and recruit and train women referees and coaches to keep the development going on. Grassroots education and mentor programs will aim to attract 500 new female coaches, 1,000 match officials, and 60,000 new registered players.
RFU Chief Executive Bill Sweeney said: “Securing RWC 2025 would add to the impressive list of major sporting events that the UK has attracted since London 2012, reinforcing the UK’s international reputation as a leading major events’ destination and a global leader in promoting women’s sport.”
“As well as providing great economic returns, hosting the tournament would help to further promote rugby as an inclusive sport and provide a springboard to narrow the gap between male and female participation.”
Following RFU’s announcement of wanting to bid for the 2025 Women’s World Cup, a study by Sheffield Hallam University’s Sports Industry Research Centre demonstrated that hosting the tournament could boost Britain’s economy by £156.25 million. While the legacy programme could also generate an estimated £86 million ($116.5 million/€101.9 million). However, it is still not decided who would be funding RFU to host the World Cup as they have two options, government injection or private help, it should be decided before the bidding month, January.