Exclusive: United Rugby Championship puts Club World Cup on the table as early as 2024

The entry of South African franchises into the Heineken Champions Cup removes a key obstacle in the construction of a Club World Cup kicking off in 2024, according to one of the prospective tournament’s architects.

South Africa’s four leading provincial teams — the Bulls, Lions, Sharks and Stormers — will be eligible to play in the Champions Cup and Challenge Cup against the best Premiership and French teams from the 2022-23 season after they were formally included in a rebranded Pro14, now called the ‘United Rugby Championship’. Subject to approval from the World Rugby Council, the URC will kick off next season featuring 16 sides from Ireland, Italy, Scotland, South Africa and Wales.

This represents a key piece in the global club rugby jigsaw with a Super Rugby tournament featuring New Zealand, Australian and potentially Pacific Island franchises also taking shape. The next step would be the formation of the long mooted Club World Cup, bringing together the best of the northern and southern hemispheres every four years, which could see past Premiership champions Exeter Chiefs and Saracens taking on New Zealand’s all-conquering Crusaders.

With the South African franchises finding a new home, Simon Halliday, the chairman of European Professional Club Rugby and a driving force behind the Club World Cup, is adamant there is now serious momentum behind the project.

“There are certain discussions around the Club World Cup that were speculative or hypothetical before but when you get a concrete announcement like today it opens up the opportunity to turn ideas into a reality,” Halliday told Telegraph Sport. “These sorts of developments are another big step along the way in terms of how it would work. A big question mark was always how would the South African teams fit in because they were marooned between competitions. Now they have that pathway so we can have the best of the best playing each other.

“The current discussion is let’s look at it for 2024. We wanted to get in on the table in 2022 but the question was where does that leave South Africa? Would we issue special invites to them? If South African franchises were not involved then the tournament would lack credibility. What you have now is a growing sense of momentum to allow those discussions to go to the next level.”

Months of hard discussions remain around the logistics, particularly with the future of Super Rugby yet to be finalised. Then there is the question of if and how Japanese clubs would be accommodated into the competition. However, Halliday is keen to emphasise that the tournament would take place within the existing club rugby window and would not result in further matches being added to a bloated calendar.

“The discussion has been partly led by the players as well because the days are gone when the administrators impose whatever they want on the playing group,” Halliday said. “The players’ group has been heavily involved from Rob Nichol to Conrad Smith and Damian Hopley, their voices have been heard. You have to be very careful and sensitive because in today’s world you cannot just play around with welfare.”

The main working idea is that the teams that qualify for the Champions Cup quarter-finals in the 2023/24 season would face the top eight teams from the southern hemisphere in a straight knockout tournament. That means that every four years the Champions Cup would be superseded by the Club World Cup.

The integration of South African teams into European rugby is significant enough in itself with the cash-strapped South African Rugby Union entitled to a share of the proceeds from the URC competition. Unlike Super Rugby, which collapsed under its own bloated weight in 2020, the URC will be shown on South African primetime television. “South African rugby has for many years imagined a future aligned with northern hemisphere rugby and this announcement marks the arrival of that vision,” SARU chief executive Jurie Roux said. “This is a watershed moment in South African rugby history, opening new doors and heralding a new and exciting era for our sport.”

As Roux indicated, South Africa are a southern hemisphere rugby country by geography alone. In all other respects, their direction of travel is northwards. The end point on that journey would be the incorporation of the Springboks into the Six Nations. There are numerous obstacles, mainly within the Six Nations organisation, that would have to be overcome but CVC Capital Partners could act as kingmakers. Already owning a stake in the commercial arm of the Six Nations as well as the URC and Premiership Rugby, the private equity group are understood to be in advanced talks with the SARU to buy a stake in the union.

Q&A: How will the United Rugby Championship work?

by Ben Coles

How many teams will feature in the competition?

The competition which originally started as the Pro12 - four teams from Wales, four from Ireland, two from Scotland and two from Italy - has steadily grown over the years. Two South African sides were added in 2017, the Cheetahs and the Kings.

Now the Cheetahs and Kings have been taken out, but with another four from South Africa added in - the Bulls, Lions, Sharks and Stormers - leaving a 16-team competition. It's the end of the Pro14, and the birth of the United Rugby Championship (URC).

How will the format work?

The regular season will last across 18 rounds, before the play-offs begin with the quarter-finals featuring the top eight from the final table, with the top four sides earning home advantage.

While all 16 teams will be ranked on the overall table, each of the clubs will belong to a pool according to their country.

So, there's an Irish pool, containing Connacht, Leinster, Munster and Ulster, a Welsh pool with Cardiff, Dragons, Ospreys and Scarlets, the South African pool featuring the Bulls, Lions, Sharks and Stormers, and finally an Italian/Scottish pool, which contains Benetton and Zebre from Italy and Scotland's Edinburgh and Glasgow Warriors.

Each team will face the other teams in their pool home and away, taking up six rounds, and then will play 12 matches against other teams from outside of their pools.

There will also be fewer season matches than previously, down from 24 to 21 including the play-offs, with the competition no longer played on international weekends.

The start date for the season is set to be the weekend of 24/25/26 September 2021, with the final scheduled for 23/24/25 June 2022.

How will teams qualify for Europe?

For the first time, South African franchises will be eligible to qualify to play in the Champions Cup and Challenge Cup from the 2022-23 season.

The top team in each of the four pools at the end of the 2021-22 season will automatically qualify for next season's Champions Cup.

Then, the four highest-ranked teams left on the overall table who have not topped their respective pools will also qualify for the Champions Cup, creating the possibility of between two and four teams qualifying from one single country.

The remaining eight teams who do not qualify for the Champions Cup will be part of the 2022-23 Challenge Cup instead.

Why are so many South African franchises joining European competitions?

It has been the long-held view in South Africa that given the commercial opportunities in Europe, and the fact that teams can travel north and south with minimal disruption due to little time difference (a maximum of two hours during the winter), that South Africa would be better off partnering with European teams.

Teams travelling to and from South Africa will have a seven-day turnaround until their next fixture.

Domestically, the 2021 Currie Cup begins in South Africa this weekend and finishes at the end of August, around a month ahead of the new URC season.

What does it mean for Super Rugby? 

With South African teams no longer involved, the 2022 Super Rugby tournament is set to be a Trans-Tasman affair, with teams from Australia and New Zealand reportedly joined by two Pacific Island sides, Moana Pasifika and Fijian Drua, to form a 12-team competition.

What does this mean for a global club tournament?

The signs are good. With South African clubs now aligned fully with European teams, and a focus on resolving the format of Super Rugby to offer greater opportunity to tier two outfits, Telegraph Sport has been told that the prospect of a Club World Cup is closer than ever before.

Simon Halliday, the current chairman of European Professional Club Rugby who govern the Heineken Champions Cup and Challenge Cup, believes a competition that sees the best of both hemispheres face off could be ready to go from as early as 2024.

Under initial proposals, the format of the tournament would see the best eight teams from the Champions Cup - comprised of European and South African clubs - take on the best eight sides in Super Rugby, which looks set to be made up of clubs across New Zealand, Australia, the Pacific Islands and potentially Japan, with the aim of crowning a club world champion.