2017 Rugby League World Cup

2017 World Cup
Number of teams 14
Host countries  Australia
 New Zealand
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The 2017 Rugby League World Cup will be the fifteenth staging of the Rugby League World Cup. It will be held in Australia and New Zealand in autumn 2017.

Host selection

At the 2010 Rugby League International Federation executive meeting, the New Zealand Rugby League made an early submission to co-host the 2017 tournament with Australia.[1]

Two formal bids were subsequently received by the RLIF before a November 2012 deadline; the co-host bid from Australia and New Zealand and a bid from South Africa.[2][3][4] On 19 February 2014, it was announced that the joint bid from Australia and New Zealand had won hosting rights.[5]

Qualification

It was announced on August 3 2014 that 7 of the 8 quarter-finalists from the last World Cup will qualify automatically for the 2017 tournament; hosts Australia and New Zealand, England, Fiji, France, Samoa and Scotland. The USA, who were also 2013 quarter-finalists, were denied automatic qualification after a long-running internal governance dispute saw their RLIF membership temporarily suspended in 2014; they were later accepted to take part in the qualification process once the matter was resolved. In addition to the seven automatic qualifiers, the remaining seven spots will come from four different qualification zones; three from Europe, two from Asia/Pacific, one from Americas and one from Middle East/Africa.[6]

Teams

Team Nickname Coach Captain RLIF rank
 Australia (15th appearance) The Kangaroos
 England (6th appearance) The Wall of White
 Fiji (5th appearance) The Bati
 France (15th appearance) Les Chanticleers
 New Zealand (15th appearance) The Kiwis
 Samoa (5th appearance) Toa Samoa
 Scotland (4th appearance) The Bravehearts

References