Six Nations and Sanzaar Renew Fight With World Rugby Over Relegation

The Six Nations and Sanzaar are heading into another row with World Rugby, this time over whether any team should be relegated at all from the Nations Championship. The Guardian reports that some unions want to make sure none of their sides can be dropped.

The Nations Championship is World Rugby's new competition for the sport's leading men's international teams. Sanzaar is the body that runs the southern hemisphere's major competitions, while the Six Nations is the annual championship between England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales.

Ten of the leading unions, which are the national governing bodies, have set up a new company called F10 to run the Nations Championship. F10 was created to sell the broadcast and commercial rights for every competition except the World Cup. The Rugby World Cup itself remains the property of World Rugby.

The second-tier competition, the Nations Cup, is run by World Rugby. Concerns have been raised that Wales and Italy want protection from being relegated into it. Smaller unions and World Rugby want the Nations Cup's commercial rights bundled and sold alongside those of the Nations Championship, so that the two are treated as one package.

Money sits at the heart of the argument. The Nations Championship secured more than 80 broadcast deals for this year's tournament, struck before F10 was formed. The Nations Cup has managed just 13. Many of its games are streamed on RugbyPass TV in a number of markets, including the UK. RugbyPass TV is owned by World Rugby.

The Nations Championship was approved at a World Rugby Council vote in Paris before the 2023 World Cup final. A 75 per cent majority was needed, and the plan passed with 41 votes for and 10 against. It was approved on the condition that from 2030 it would become an open league, where every side can be relegated. Under that plan, one promotion place would go to Nations Cup teams.

World Rugby's vision is that the team that loses a sixth-versus-sixth playoff in 2030 would be replaced by the winner of the Nations Cup. Japan and Fiji have invitational status in the first three editions of the Nations Championship, which runs until 2030.

The Six Nations says its official position is that relegation will be introduced as envisaged in 2030, and that the exact mechanism is still to be decided. The licence granted by World Rugby requires promotion and relegation to be in place by then, so the question is less whether the drop happens and more how it works and who it affects.

For fans, the stakes are simple to state. A team that finishes poorly could lose its place among the sport's top tier, which is why protection from the drop is attractive to the unions most at risk of it. Those pushing for an open league argue that a competition without relegation has no real consequences for weak results. Both sides are still negotiating, and no final arrangement has been agreed.