The European qualification tournament for the

2023 Rugby World Cup The 2023 Rugby World Cup () was the tenth men's Rugby World Cup, the quadrennial world championship for national rugby union teams. It took place in France from 8 September to 28 October 2023 in nine venues across the country. The opening game ...

was contested between March 2021 and March 2022. Six teams not already qualified via their performance at the

2019 Rugby World Cup The 2019 Rugby World Cup () was the ninth edition of the Rugby World Cup, the quadrennial world championship for men's rugby union teams. It was hosted in Japan from 20 September to 2 November in 12 venues all across the country. The opening matc ...

competed for two direct qualification spots in the final tournament and for a place in the Final Qualification Tournament.

Format

The

Rugby Europe Championship The Rugby Europe International Championships is the European Championship for tier 2 and tier 3 rugby union nations. The tournament is the latest formation of a competition with history going back to 1932. At that time, France had been expelled ...

, controlled by

Rugby Europe Rugby Europe is the administrative body for rugby union in Europe. It was formed in 1999 to promote, develop, organise, and administer the game of rugby in Europe under the authority of World Rugby (the sport's global governing body). However, it ...

, is the regional qualification tournament for the 2023 Rugby World Cup in France. Each team play each other in a double-round-robin tournament over the two years, with the winners and runners-up of the two-year cycle qualifying for the World Cup as Europe 1 and Europe 2 respectively. The third placed team advances to the Final qualification tournament as Europe 3. The qualification process did not include the remaining three divisions in the Rugby Europe system that are typically included across play-off matches due to the time scale restraints caused by the

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Entrants

Six teams competed during the European qualifiers for the

; teams World Rankings are prior to the first European qualification matches on 6 March.

Rugby Europe Championship

Table

For the Rugby Europe Championship teams, results were considered on a 2-year aggregate from the

2021 Like the year 2020, 2021 was also heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the emergence of multiple Variants of SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 variants. The major global rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, which began at the end of 2020, continued ...

and 2022 seasons; the winner and runner-up teams automatically qualified for the tournament as Europe 1 and Europe 2 individually, leaving the team in third place to qualify for the Final qualification tournament as Europe 3. Following the Russian military invasion of Ukraine, Rugby Europe suspended all Russian games on home soil on 25 February 2022 before later suspending Russia at all levels with immediate effect on 1 March 2022. This later resulted in the cancelled games being declared a walkover and the opposition of Russia would be given 4 points. Georgia were confirmed as Europe 1 following a walkover result against Russia whilst on 13 March, Spain had secured Europe 2 with a win over Portugal. However, on 28 March, it was announced Spain would be investigated for fielding an ineligible player, the South Africa-born

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, in two World Cup qualifying matches against the Netherlands. On 28 April 2022, an independent judicial committee determined that Spain did breach the regulation, and deducted 10 points from the table. This resulted in Spain dropping out of the top three qualifying/play-off places meaning Romania qualified as Europe 2 and Portugal would proceed to the play-offs. Spain later appealed the decision, but the appeal was unsuccessful and the original decision was upheld. This meant Romania qualified as Europe 2 and Portugal advanced to the play-offs as Europe 3.

Fixtures

2021

---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----

2022

---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- * Georgia awarded 4 points. ---- * Netherlands awarded 4 points. ---- ---- ---- ---- Portugal awarded 4 points. ----

References

External links

Rugby World Cup
Official Site {{DEFAULTSORT:World Cup

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2020–21 in European rugby union 2021–22 in European rugby union