2021 Rugby League World Cup
The 2021 Rugby League World Cup will be the sixteenth staging of the Rugby League World Cup and will be held in England between 23 October 2021 and 27 November 2021. The tournament will include 16 teams, an increase of two from the last two tournaments.
On 27 October 2016, it was confirmed that England won the hosting rights for the 2021 Rugby League World Cup.
Host selection
There were initially three bids for the 2021 Rugby League World Cup but the United Arab Emirates bid had to be cancelled due to the arrest of Sol Mokdad at the behest of UAE rugby union officials.England, and the United States and Canada were the two remaining bidders of the event. The English RFL received UK government support - £15 million to enhance the tournament and up to a further £10 million into the game's infrastructure - for the event to be staged in the country. The RFL mentioned they wanted the event to be the most attended in history with over 1,000,000 people attending the grounds over the tournament's days. They were also planning to use 12 venues for the event which included non-purpose and rugby league-purpose stadiums.
The United States and Canada bid was initially a sole United States bid from an Australian sports marketing agency, Moore Sports International. Jason Moore of MSI stated that rugby league has a strong following in several US markets and that fans new to rugby league and "who have a hunger for gladiatorial-style sports are going to fall in love with this extraordinary game". Eight to ten cities, featuring venues from either the NFL or MLS, were planned for the event, offering Rugby League International Federation the opportunity to stage the tournament outside of Europe and Australasia for the first time. Canada Rugby League later announced they wanted to be a part of the United States bid stating that the cities of Vancouver and Toronto could also potentially host matches.
On 27 October 2016, the RLIF announced that England had won hosting rights for the 2021 Rugby League World Cup.
On 27 November 2019, it was announced that the World Cup draw would be held on 16 January 2020. On 8 January 2020, it was announced that Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, would be hosting the World Cup draw on 16 January at Buckingham Palace.
Qualification
The eight quarter-finalists of the previous tournament in 2017 earned automatic qualification to the 2021 tournament. As such, the allocations were confirmed as 6 teams from Europe, 6 from Asia-Pacific, 1 from Middle East/Africa, 1 from the Americas, and 1 from an intercontinental play-off. Qualification began in on 16 June 2018, and concluded on 16 November 2019.Qualified teams
Venues
The full list of 21 venues to be used for the three tournaments was announced on 29 January 2019. Eighteen venues will be used for the men's tournament and in addition Preston was announced as a training venue for the tournaments. The use of the as-yet unbuilt Workington Community Stadium as a venue was thrown into doubt after the 2019 Allerdale Borough Council election when control of the council changed and the new council showed less enthusiasm for the new stadium project. In early July 2019 Allerdale Council confirmed that they would be unable to host any matches in the tournament. The tournament organisers responded that the three group matches planned for Workington would be re-allocated. On 28 August 2019 it was announced that Kingston Park in Newcastle upon Tyne would host the three games originally planned to take place in Workington.Team base camps
Base camps were used by the 16 national squads to stay and train before and during the World Cup tournament. On 10 June 2020, these locations were released.- Australia: Manchester
- Cook Islands: Tees Valley
- England: Manchester
- Fiji: Kingston upon Hull
- France: Bolton
- Greece: Sheffield
- Ireland: Leeds
- Italy: St Helens
- Jamaica: Leeds
- Lebanon: Leigh
- New Zealand: York
- Papua New Guinea: Warrington
- Samoa: Doncaster
- Scotland: Newcastle upon Tyne
- Tonga: St Helens
- Wales: Preston
Opening ceremony
Group stage
Draw
The draw was originally scheduled to be finalised on 27 November 2019, exactly two years before the date of the tournament final. However, the draw was postponed until 16 January 2020. The draw was made at Buckingham Palace on 16 January 2020. Teams from pot 1 were drawn by Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, pot 2 was drawn by Katherine Grainger and pot 3 by Jason Robinson.| Pool | Group A | Group B | Group C | Group D |
| Seeded | ||||
| Pot 1 | ||||
| Pot 2 | ||||
| Pot 3 |
With three groups headed by Pacific region teams, the decision was made to ensure that there was Pacific region team in each group, therefore Lebanon were left out of the pool 1 draw until after the first team from that pool had been drawn. With the other three teams in pool 1 all being from the Pacific region this would ensure that Group A would contain a Pacific region team.
Group A
Group B
Group C
Group D
Knockout stage
The top 2 teams from each pool advanced to the quarter-finals. All quarter-finalists automatically qualified for the 2025 Rugby League World Cup.----
Quarter-finals
Quarter final 1
----Quarter final 2
----Quarter final 3
----Quarter final 4
----Semi-finals
Semi final 1
----Semi final 2
----Final
Broadcasting
At the moment only the United Kingdom's broadcasting of the World Cup have been confirmed. Australia's broadcasters are expected to be run by Fox Sports and a free to air broadcaster. New Zealand's broadcaster is expected to be Sky Sport.| Country | Broadcaster | Matches |
| BBC | All 31 matches live, 16 matches on BBC1 or BBC2, Venue launch programme and highlights programme | |
| OurLeague App | All 31 matches live, exclusive post match interviews and OuRLeague highlights programme. | |
| RugbyAM | Highlights programme and post match interviews. | |
| FacebookLive | Group Draws for Men's, Women's, and Wheelchair. Hosted by HRH Prince Harry The Duke of Sussex. |
In April 2019, it was reported that the digital strategy for the tournament will be led by Deloitte. In May 2019, the RLWC organisers announced they were looking for an esport partner to engage new audiences with the sport.
InspirationALL legacy project
The 2021 Rugby League World Cup commenced a legacy project called InspirationALL in 2018.Partnerships and suppliers
Festival of Rugby League World Cups
In 2019 it was announced that the RLWC contacted Rugby League governing bodies across the world regarding a 'Festival of World Cups'. Organisers have stated the festival of world cups will take place in the summer of 2021, before the commencement of the Men's, Women's, and Wheelchair tournaments, taking place in the autumn of 2021.Previous RLWC tournaments have also hosted a Festival of World Cups, which have historically included a University World Cup, Police World Cup, and a Defence Forces World Cup. 2021 is expected to include an emerging nations tournament for both men and women.