World Rugby has today announced Australia is the preferred candidate for both the 2027 Men’s and 2029 Women’s Rugby World Cups.

This comes after a long period of meetings between World Rugby, Rugby Australia, governments and host cities.

The final vote on the host country will be decided by the World Rugby Council in Dublin in May, where Australia will lead the way for both tournaments.

Speaking exclusively to Ministry of Sport, World Rugby CEO, Alan Gilpin, noted his joy with the commitment from both state and federal governments to support the events.

“We’ve been in the background in the whole process, obviously Rugby Australia has engaged the federal and all the state governments,” Gilpin told Ministry of Sport.

“It’s [the federal funding] been crucial, that funding is funding the delivery of the tournaments… which is a big undertaking, it’s not just about funding it’s about broader support that the governments need to offer.

“The great thing about dealing with governments here in Australia is that the Australian Government understand big sports events and you see that all the time.

“We’ve had the Rugby World Cup here before, so they [the Australian Government] get that this puts a lot of heads on beds, it brings a huge influx of tourism with a couple hundred thousand international fans that will come here for the world cup.

“That’s around two and a half billion dollars of economic impact, so the government see that and therefore can see the way to fund against it and that’s crucial for us,” he said.

After a difficult period during the pandemic, Rugby Australia and World Rugby are hopeful for a massive economic boost to get the game back to the level it was.

“After two horrible years for everybody and it’s hit Rugby Australia really hard, so having the opportunity [to have] the Lions, men’s and women’s World Cups, sevens and Olympics, [the opportunity] that is going to give them [Rugby Australia] is hopefully going to allow them to really inspire that next generation of kids to play,” Gilpin said.

The World Rugby Council will reconvene in Dublin to finalise the bids for both World Cups and is also expected to announce the 2031 Men’s and 2023 Women’s World Cups in the US.