Qualification will begin on 22 October 2024 with European qualification tournament.[1]
Background
The allocation of teams for the 2026 World Cup was announced on 7 August 2023. The 2026 edition of the Rugby League World Cup will only feature ten men's teams, down from 16 in 2021. The eight quarter-finalists from the previous World Cup achieved automatic qualification, leaving two spots remaining for the qualification process.[1][2]
The qualification process for the 9th and 10th places will be a two stage process. The first stage is to establish the representatives from each of the four International Rugby League (IRL) confederations (Americas, Asia-Pacific, Europe, and Middle East-Africa) with those representatives advancing to the second and final round of qualification, the World Series to be played in 2025.
The process announced in August 2023 would have seen qualifying tournaments in all four confederations but subsequent changes by the IRL have changed this. In October 2023 IRL confirmed that only full members of the IRL can take part in the qualifying competition.[3] This left only Cook Islands (Asia-Pacific), Jamaica (Americas) and South Africa (Middle East-Africa) as the only full-member nations for their respective confederations, and therefore will automatically advance to the second round of qualification.
This leaves the European confederation as the only one to stage a confederation tournament to decide their second-round slot allocation.[1][2]
Following the conclusion of the European confederation qualification tournament, the 2025 World Series will take place.[1][2][3]
The European confederation qualification tournament will take place in October 2024 and is open to all full member nations as of 15 March 2024. The winner of the tournament will advance to the World Series in 2025.[1]
Teams will play semi-finals and a final. The semi-finals are based on IRL Rank with highest-ranked playing lowest-ranked and second-highest playing second-lowest. The losing semi-finalists will contest a third place playoff; this has no bearing on World Cup qualification, but will count for world ranking points.[6]
The 2025 World Series will be the inter-confederation qualification tournament for the 2026 Rugby League World Cup.[1] The winner and the runners-up will qualify for the World Cup.[2]
In September 2024, South Africa (who will participate in the tournament) submitted a proposal to host the World Series, in attempt to strengthen their bids to host the 2028 Women's World Cup and 2030 Men's World Cup.[7]
France (Winner of European qualification tournament)
Notes
^Competed as part of Great Britain in nine previous tournaments, finishing as champions on three occasions (1954, 1960, 1972).
^On 14 March 2024, Lebanon had their membership downgraded from full to affiliate member, however as Lebanon had already qualified for the World Cup, their tournament status is unaffected.[4][5]
