Rugby League World Cup in disarray as host country makes shock call

France has withdrawn as host of the 2025 Rugby League World Cup over considerations for the monetary viability of the match.

The seventeenth staging of the World Cup for the 13-a-side code was scheduled for October-November, 2025.

France, which this yr will host the Rugby Union World Cup, had beforehand hosted the 1954 and 1972 league editions, and co-hosted in each 2000 and 2013.

According to stories within the UK, the match may make a late transfer to Australia and New Zealand. The UK can be an possibility, having hosted the 2022 World Cup, received by Australia in November.

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The bombshell news was dropped on Tuesday morning with match organisers saying a scarcity of funding meant internet hosting the match carried unacceptable monetary danger.

“This difficult decision is taken so as not to endanger the robustness of the models of major international sporting events that France wants to have from now on,” the organising committee mentioned.

The sport’s governing physique, the International Rugby League (IRL), known as the transfer “very disappointing”, saying its board would convene “to consider options for the 2025 World Cup”.

“The France 2025 board of directors felt they had no choice after the French government demanded a guarantee for the risk of loss for the event, considering that the conditions initially set to secure the economic viability of the event were not met, after additional time and funding provided to the committee by the French Government to that end,” the IRL mentioned.

IRL chairman Troy Grant added: “The factors that impacted on the bid team’s ability to complete the early structure of the tournament, such as the economic crisis and, in particular, inflationary pressure on host town council budgets, undermined their ability to secure adequate securities for the event to satisfy the government’s strict conditional benchmarks, put forward from the beginning of the process, for the tournament to proceed.

“Despite our focus having been on France, we will now accelerate our consideration of other contingency options.”