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Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025 confirms opening and closing venues

LONDON, ENGLAND - APRIL 29: A general view of play during the TikTok Women's Six Nations match between England and France at Twickenham Stadium on April 29, 2023 in London, England. (Photo by Warren Little/Getty Images)

Sunderland’s Stadium of Light will play host to England’s Red Roses in the opening match of the Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025, while Twickenham Stadium will look to set a new attendance record at the final, World Rugby and the RFU have announced.

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Up to 49,000 fans from the North East of England and beyond will have a golden opportunity to watch England, the world’s number one ranked team, in action on the evening of Friday 22nd August as they kick off the tenth edition of the pinnacle event, which has been expanded to 16 teams.

Organisers hope Twickenham’s hosting of the final on Saturday 27th September 2025 will be a symbolic and fitting finale to a tournament that aims to capture hearts and headlines around the world. In doing so, the hope is to smash the 58,498 attendance record by selling out one of the world’s most iconic sporting venues.

For the first time ever, the expanded showcase event will be hosted across eight venues and cities around the country with 16 teams competing to be crowned world champions.

World Rugby Chairman Sir Bill Beaumont said: “Women’s Rugby World Cup England 2025 will be a generational moment for rugby. The biggest, most accessible and most widely-viewed, its unstoppable momentum will reach, engage and inspire new audiences in ways that rugby events have not done before.

“The selection of Sunderland for the opening match underscores that mission. We want this to be a sports event that everyone is talking about, that everyone wants to be a part of and one that inspires young people to be a part of.”

Canada, England, France and New Zealand have already qualified for Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025 after finishing in the top four at RWC 2021, with the remaining positions to be filled via WXV and regional competitions in 2024.

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Commercial demand also continues to grow with four official partners – Mastercard, Capgemini, Gallagher and Mitsubishi Electric – already on board for England 2025.

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J
JW 2 hours ago
'Let's not sugarcoat it': Former All Black's urgent call to protect eligibility rules

Yep, no one knows what will happen. Thing is I think (this is me arguing a point here not a random debate with this one) they're better off trialing it now in a controlled environment than waiting to open it up in a knee jerk style reaction to a crumbling organtization and team. They can always stop it again.


The principle idea is that why would players leave just because the door is ajar?


BBBR decides to go but is not good enough to retain the jersey after doing it. NZ no longer need to do what I suggest by paying him to get back upto speed. That is solely a concept of a body that needs to do what I call pick and stick wth players. NZR can't hold onto everyone so they have to choose their BBBRs and if that player comes back from a sabbatical under par it's a priority to get him upto speed as fast as possible because half of his competition has been let go overseas because they can't hold onto them all. Changing eligibility removes that dilemma, if a BBBR isn't playing well you can be assured that someone else is (well the idea is that you can be more assured than if you only selected from domestic players).


So if someone decides they want to go overseas, they better do it with an org than is going to help improve them, otherwise theyre still basically as ineligible as if they would have been scorning a NZ Super side that would have given them the best chance to be an All Black.

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