Rugby World Cup: Japan to bid to host the tournament again as soon as 2035

Four years after the success of Rugby World Cup 2019 and Japan are eager to host World Rugby’s showpiece event again.

Japan Rugby Football Union (JRFU) chairman Kensuke Iwabuchi has informed World Rugby that his country wants to host the Rugby World Cup as early as 2035.

Japan to host another Rugby World Cup?

Future hosts of the Rugby World Cup will be awarded both the men’s and women’s tournaments, and Japan have thrown their hat in the ring for 2035 and 2037.

Japan became the first Asian side to progress past the pool stages of the World Cup when they hosted the tournament in 2019, stunning Scotland and Ireland on their way to the quarter-finals.

The JRFU have big plans for the future, with Iwabuchi saying that Japan “want to be the number one team in the world when we host it”.

“We’ve informed World Rugby that we want to do it then at the earliest (2035), and we will move forward looking at when the conditions allow us to actually host it,” he said.

France will host the 2023 Rugby World Cup, with Australia hosting the men’s tournament in 2027 and the women’s event in 2029.

The tournament heads to North America thereafter with the 2031 men’s World Cup and the 2033 women’s showpiece in the United States.

The JRFU have also set the goal of doubling the number of registered women players from 5,000 by 2050 and winning a Gold medal at the 2048 Olympics.

2019 World Cup’s impact

The 2019 Rugby World Cup had a massive impact on rugby in Asia.

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According to a 2019 report from World Rugby, the tournament inspired 2.25 million new rugby participants in Asia, including 1.18 million in Japan alone. This included a 50 per cent increase in national U18 girls’ sides in Asia.

The Rugby World Cup final had a cumulative TV audience of 17.2 million in Japan.

Japan’s pool stage win over Scotland was watched by a domestic peak record rugby TV audience of 54.8 million viewers.