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70-494: The stadium has been used in Rugby League World Cups . The ground has hosted many French rugby league championship and cup finals as well as French rugby league internationals, the first being in 1967 when Great Britain national rugby league team won 16–13 in front of 10,650 spectators Formerly called 'le stade de la Pepiniere' the ground was built and opened in 1899 and sits within the medieval castle walls of

140-408: A final challenge match was hastily arranged which Australia would win 25–0. In 1977, Great Britain competed again as a single entity. Although the final between Australia and Great Britain was a closely fought affair, public interest in the tournament waned due to the continuing tinkering with the format and it was not held again until the mid-1980s. From 1985 to 1988, each nation played each other

210-458: A centre during the 1920s and 1930s. The stadium has a bronze statue of AS Carcassonne's most famous player, former captain of the French national rugby league team , Puig Aubert at its entrance. The record attendance at the ground is 23,500 for the French rugby league championship final in 1949 between AS Carcassonne and Marseille XIII . This article about a French sports venue

280-437: A changeing number of teams making the finals and entering the qualifiers, and the unpredictability of the geographic spread of teams automatically qualifying, the format of the qualification tournament has changed with each edition of the tournament. The Rugby League World Cup has followed a varied range of formats throughout its history as the number of teams participating has increased. The current format has been in use since

350-505: A four-year cycle. The World Cup trophy was commissioned by French Fédération Française de Rugby à XIII president Paul Barrière at a cost of eight million francs, and then donated to the International Rugby League Board to be used for the inaugural competition in 1954. This trophy was used and presented to the winning nation for the first four tournaments, before being stolen in 1970. After its recovery,

420-689: A group of leagues that are tied together in a hierarchical fashion by promotion and relegation, and to the individual leagues within the league system. For example, in English association football , the English Football League (EFL) is a league system, while the term "National League" refers both to the league immediately below the EFL in the English pyramid and to its associated league system . An alternate system of league organization which

490-663: A home nation victory the World Cup suffered from poor crowds due to the live broadcast of games for the first time. After a disappointing attendances in 1960, the World Cup would not be played for another eight years. The competition had been scheduled to be held in France in 1965, this time with the inclusion of the South African team . However, after an unsuccessful tour of Australia, the French withdrew, effectively postponing

560-470: A number of times on a home and away basis with a number of these games also being considered part of various international tours that took place during the years in which these world cups were being played. At the end of that period, Australia met New Zealand at Eden Park . The match was a physical encounter, and Australian captain Wally Lewis played part of the match with a broken arm. The Kangaroos won

630-484: A regular season in a league format, the top teams (possibly determined by conference or division) advance to the playoffs. In some such leagues having the best regular season record is relatively unimportant, though top-seeded teams in some leagues, such as the NFL , can gain byes to later rounds of the playoffs, and teams finishing with the best records usually have the advantage of playing the weakest teams that have advanced to

700-555: A rugby league World Cup tournament was first mooted in the 1930s with the French proposal to hold a tournament in 1931, and again in 1951. The tournament's structure, frequency, and size has varied significantly throughout its history. The winners are awarded the Paul Barrière Trophy , named after Paul Barrière , the French Rugby League President of the 1940s and 1950s. Three nations have won

770-399: A single competition or a related group of competitions. Many groups use promotion and relegation , where the best-ranked team(s) in the lower division are promoted to the higher division for the next season, and the worst-ranked team(s) in the higher division are relegated to the lower division for the next season. Under this system, "league" may refer both to a league system ,

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840-716: A small amount of interleague play , with the main AL-NL competition occurring between their champions in the World Series . Thus the two leagues played mostly separate competitions within the larger framework of MLB. Finally, until 2000, they were actually separate legal entities, unlike the conferences of other leagues. Nippon Professional Baseball in Japan has a similar history, with the Central League and Pacific League not founded together. Due to this naming custom, it

910-412: A tournament was in 2000 when 26 stadiums were used; the stadium capacity was the highest ever at 704,400. However, the occupancy was also the lowest ever at just 37.46%. The largest stadium in terms of capacity ever used was Wembley Stadium , London with a seating capacity of 90,000; the stadium was used in the 2013 tournament as the venue for the semi-final double-header. The smallest stadium ever used

980-545: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Rugby League World Cup The Rugby League World Cup is an international rugby league tournament contested by the top national men's representative teams. The tournament is administered by the International Rugby League and was first held in France in 1954 , which was the first World Cup held for any form of rugby football . The idea of

1050-519: Is a major factor in many sports. When teams competing for a tournament championship do not play the same teams the same number of times, it is known as an unbalanced schedule. In such a set-up, the team with the best record becomes champion, based on either a strict win–loss–tie system or on a points system where a certain number of points are awarded for a win, loss, or tie, while bonus points might also be added for teams meeting various criteria. Many leagues also use playoffs , where after teams compete in

1120-550: Is a sports league where all the fixtures take place at the same venue, instead of rotating around the venues of the 'home' team, for each fixture. Several UK basketball leagues operate on this basis, intended to keep the costs of participation as low as possible, including: Many sports leagues also participate in a single-elimination tournament each year. In the United States, Mexico, and some other countries, these tournaments are commonly called "playoffs" and are played at

1190-509: Is a structure that allows teams or individuals to compete against each other in a nonrandom order on a set schedule, usually called a season , with the results of the individual competitions being used to name an overall champion. A league championship may be contested in a number of ways. Each team may play every other team a certain number of times in a round-robin tournament . Usually, teams play an equal number of games or matches at their own stadium and at other teams', because home advantage

1260-499: Is common to use slightly different terms to discuss MLB. Where someone might refer to "the best quarterback in the league" and be understood to mean the overall NFL, a similar mention of "the best outfielder in the league" is almost always a reference to the American or National League, while "in all of baseball" or similar is used to denote the larger status. Each of the major leagues also has its own set of awards to recognize

1330-559: Is especially common in individual sports, although the term "league" is sometimes used in amateur individual sports such as golf . The term "league" is also sometimes applicable to competitions that would more traditionally be called tournaments , such as the UEFA Champions League , which is organized with multiple small round-robin competitions followed by a single elimination tournament to choose an overall winner. "League" and its synonyms may be used to encompass either

1400-405: Is most popular in these regions they have regularly hosted the World Cup between themselves. World Cups in 1985–88 and 1989–92 were all jointly hosted by the four founding nations. New Zealand has never solely hosted a World Cup but they have co-hosted with Australia on three occasions with 2017 also jointly co-hosted with Papua New Guinea. England have co-hosted once with Wales in 2013 although

1470-551: Is still used in many team sports around the world. One potential drawback of this simple double round-robin format is that the number of teams in the league determines the schedule. Larger leagues may not be able to play as many games as such a system would require, and smaller leagues may want more games. In addition, leagues whose teams are geographically spread out over a wide area (a common situation for leagues in North America) may face significant travel costs. One solution

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1540-411: Is to allow teams to play each other whenever they see fit. In some sports, such as horse racing , the main goal of the entrants is to win individual purses , and there is little or no ranking or competition outside winning certain major races. A small amount of league organization may be imposed on these non-league sports by way of a series or tournament tying several individual events together, such as

1610-428: Is to play an unbalanced schedule, with some teams playing additional games against some other teams; this is the way Major League Soccer has traditionally been scheduled, with the additional games being played against local rivals. Some leagues also break the league into subunits, often known as divisions and conferences , each of which may itself play a balanced or unbalanced schedule. A "central venue league" (CVL)

1680-624: Is used primarily in Australia, Canada, and the United States is a closed model which always has the same teams playing, with occasional admission of expansion teams and relocation of existing teams . There is no team movement between the higher major league and the lower minor leagues . In many of these closed-model leagues in Canada and the United States, they are divided into subdivisions on historical or geographical lines. These may be referred to as conferences or divisions . For example,

1750-427: Is used similarly in the United States to describe baseball teams that play in leagues other than those sanctioned by Major League Baseball . These teams do play in leagues and should not be confused with barnstorming teams that play truly non-league schedules. Individual sports often use an alternative type of league organization where competitors are ranked against each other. In the simplest cases, such as boxing ,

1820-582: The American League (AL) and the older National League (NL). They are titled leagues rather than conferences for several reasons. The National League predates the American by 25 years and was considered a "major" league in comparison to its early competitors, and in a sense it simply extended this recognition to the AL, the only league of similar financial clout. In addition, the leagues played no interlocking schedule of any kind until 1995, and then added only

1890-845: The National Football League (NFL) is divided into the National Football Conference and American Football Conference ; the latter conference was formed largely from the remnants of the American Football League after it merged with the NFL , though it now contains three original NFL teams and three expansion teams. Both the National Basketball Association (NBA) and National Hockey League (NHL) are divided into Eastern and Western Conferences. The conferences in

1960-534: The Triple Crown . Even in team sports that normally use a traditional league format, some teams often exist outside any league; these teams are generally known as barnstorming teams and either schedule games against local professional or amateur competition or bring their own competition, such as the barnstorming Harlem Globetrotters did when they toured with the Washington Generals . As with

2030-516: The 2000 World Cup was played across the UK as well as some games in Ireland and France. France hosted the first World Cup in 1954 and again in 1972 as well as hosting games at the 2000 and 2013 World Cups. Despite the World Cup mainly being hosted by England, Australia, France and New Zealand, countries such as UAE , South Africa and the United States and Canada have applied to host the tournament in

2100-421: The 2021 tournament, in addition to the 2000 tournament. This format features 16 teams split into four groups of four playing a single round robin. Each team is awarded two points for a win and one point for a draw. The top two teams from each group qualify for the knockout stage. The eight teams in the quarter-finals play each other with the four winners progressing to the semi-finals before the World Cup final. If

2170-740: The 74,468 crowd which attended the 2013 World Cup final at Old Trafford . The fifth nation to compete in these two tournaments was Papua New Guinea, where rugby league is the national, and most popular, sport. In 1995 , the competition was held in England and Wales. It was again restructured, returning to the traditional "host / co-host" format, and intended (like in 1954) to be a triennial competition. The tournament expanded to ten teams with Fiji, Samoa, South Africa, and Tonga making their world cup deputes. Great Britain had also split permanently into England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, although only England and Wales qualified. Unlike previous tournaments where

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2240-581: The Globetrotters, barnstorming teams sometimes emphasize spectacle over athletic competition. In Europe, the term "cup competition" is used to describe single elimination or knock-out tournaments, where the pairing of teams in each round is determined by a "draw" (see for example, the FA Cup in England), to distinguish it from league competition, in which every club in the league or division plays

2310-424: The NFL, NBA, and NHL are further divided into subsets, all of which are called divisions . These are geographically based, and teams play their divisional opponents more than any others, and then play the other clubs in their conference more than their non-conference opponents. Baseball has a unique nomenclature, with " Major League Baseball " (MLB) the name of the overall grouping of 30 teams in two "major leagues",

2380-443: The cities with the next highest number with 3 each. Notes; In total, 21 teams have competed at the World Cup. Of these, only three have won the World Cup, with Australia being by far the most successful with 12 titles. Great Britain has won three titles, however since 1995 have competed separately as England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. New Zealand became only the third team to win the World Cup in 2008. England, France and Samoa are

2450-467: The city. In 1919 the rugby club paid 95,000 francs for the site then sold it to the local council a year later. The council built the two main stands that run along the length of the pitch each able to hold 3,000 spectators, floodlights and a cycle track were also installed. The stadium has been renovated twice since in 2002 and in 2012. The ground is named after the former US Carcassonne and French rugby union international player Albert Domec who played as

2520-401: The competition 25–12 in front of a capacity crowd of nearly 48,000 spectators. This format was repeated from 1989 to 1992 (with games once again also being part of tours) and Australia won again, defeating Great Britain 10–6 at Wembley Stadium in front of 73,361 people. This crowd remained a Rugby League World Cup record (and a record for any rugby league international match) until beaten by

2590-408: The competition reverting to a 10-team format. The tournament also moved from every three to every four years inline with most other major international sports competitions. Australia hosted the tournament and New Zealand were crowned champions for the first time by beating the host nation at Lang Park , Brisbane . The tournament was once again seen as a success with a 91% average attendance increase on

2660-482: The conference, as other sports leagues do, but the individual schools also schedule a certain number of "non-conference" games that are organized independently between two schools in different conferences, or between a conference team and a non-conference team. Also, national championships in some college sports are determined by a ranking or playoff system that is independent of the individual conferences. Most major team sports play some form of round-robin schedule, where

2730-403: The country. Unlike the previous tournament, teams played each other in a league format. It was then decided that the team that finished first in the league would be declared the winner. Australia proved victorious on their home ground. Another three years would pass until the next World Cup in 1960, this time held in England. It would be the second time Great Britain won the competition. Despite

2800-506: The field further, with sixteen teams entering. This tournament included a New Zealand Maori representative team, the only time this team has taken part, as well as debuts for the Cook Islands, Ireland, Russia, and Scotland. Australia won the tournament by beating New Zealand 40–12 in the final at Old Trafford , Manchester . In the same year, the first Women's Rugby League World Cup was held, with New Zealand defeating Great Britain in

2870-508: The final. Numerous issues, including poor organization and blown-out scorelines, meant that this tournament was seen as highly unsuccessful with an average attendance just half that of the previous tournament. Due to these problems the competition was put on indefinite hiatus and replaced with the Rugby League Tri-Nations . After the failure of the 2000 World Cup, no plans were made for another tournament until 2008 with

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2940-490: The first time in Papua New Guinea. While Australia would claim the title once again and for an eleventh time, the tournament was considered highly successful in terms of competitiveness. The tournament would see Tonga beat New Zealand in the group stages with a score of 28–22 to top the group, the first time a team from outside the top 3 had beaten a top 3 nation in over two decades. New Zealand went on to play Fiji in

3010-570: The goal is for each team to play a relatively balanced schedule with each other team in the league or in its league subdivision. Within this structure, there are a few significant differences between leagues, a few of which are set forth below. The simplest way to organize a sports league, and still one of the most common, is in a double round-robin format where each team plays each other team twice, once at home and once away. This ensures that every team plays an equally difficult schedule and that no team has undue home field advantage . This organization

3080-553: The group stages and over 66,000 people attending the final, in which Australia defeated England 16–8. Intended for 1998, the next World Cup was delayed for two years due to the Super League war and the subsequent re-structuring of rugby league's international governing bodies meant that the proposed 1998 World Cup was postponed. In 2000 , the World Cup was held in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and France, and expanded

3150-401: The high level of talent they had on offer that year (no Scottish or Irish players made the original Great Britain squad). This resulted in the tournament increasing from four teams to five for the first time. There was not a final held to decide the champions of the 1975 tournament and so Australia won by virtue of topping the group standings. As Australia had not beaten England in that tournament

3220-436: The most successful competition since 1995 in terms of attendances, exposure and financial output. The tournament saw Italy and the United States play in their first world cup. Australia took the title again after defeating New Zealand in the final by a score of 34–2. The final attendance became the record international rugby league attendance at 74,468. 2017 Rugby League World Cup taking place in Australia, New Zealand and for

3290-507: The nation to host the first tournament to be officially known as the "Rugby World Cup". In addition to the hosts, the tournament featured teams from Britain, Australia and New Zealand. The 1954 Rugby League World Cup was won by Great Britain who defeated France in Paris on 13 November to claim the title. Following the success of the maiden World Cup three years later another tournament was held in Australia, marking 50 years of rugby league in

3360-446: The number of teams increased to 16 once again, with Greece and Jamaica debuting in the competition. In 2021, the women's and wheelchair competitions were given equal prominence with the men's tournament, as a result all three competition were run simultaneously for the first time. Australia again won the competition, beating final debutants Samoa 30–10. The 2021 tournament was the most watched rugby league world cup in history, and

3430-474: The only teams to have played in the final and not won. Wales' best result was third under the old format and have made the semi-finals twice while Fiji have appeared in three while Tonga have made the semi-finals just once. Papua New Guinea achieved fourth place under the old format and have made it to three quarter-finals. Four other teams; Ireland, Lebanon, Scotland and the USA have all made the quarter-finals bringing

3500-408: The other teams a pre-determined number of times in a season, usually on a home and away basis. Further, in England, the term non-league football is used for historical reasons to describe association football teams that play in organized leagues, but not in the English Football League or Premier League , the two highest levels of competition in that sport in that country. Independent baseball

3570-671: The past. NB : As Great Britain was the IRL nation until 1995, the United Kingdom is used to refer to host nations before this time regardless of the number of home nations which actually hosted the tournament. In total, 81 stadiums have hosted world cup games over the 14 tournaments. Headingley Stadium in Leeds has hosted the tournament the most times, having had games in 7 world cups with Central Park , Wigan and Lang Park , Brisbane having hosted 6 tournaments. 52 stadiums have hosted matches in just 1 tournament. The most stadiums used in

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3640-464: The playoffs. While round-robin and modified round-robin competitions are the most common form of league organization, there are a number of ways to organize a sporting competition, almost all of which may be described as a "league". Many sports organizations fall on a continuum between a total lack of organization, as in a pick-up game, and a formal league such as is common at the highest level of professional team sports. The simplest form of competition

3710-399: The previous competition. New Zealand became only the third team to win the world cup and the first other than Australia since 1972. 2013 saw England and Wales host the tournament and expanded to 14 teams. The tournament, originally scheduled for 2012, was moved very early in its organisation to 2013 due to the United Kingdom hosting the 2012 Summer Olympics . The competition was considered

3780-411: The quarter-finals and lost once again with a score of just 4–2, knocking New Zealand out in the quarter-finals, the first time a tier 1 nation had exited the tournament at this early stage. Tonga played England in the semi-finals and while conceding 20 unanswered points, they would score 3 tries in just the last seven minutes to pull the score back to 20–18, eventually losing by this close margin. The final

3850-826: The rankings mean little and the major competition is to crown a champion in a title fight. In other sports, the rankings and leaderboards gain importance when they are used in seeding tournaments. In some sports, points are assigned to results at individual competitions, and the resulting points are used to generate a season rankings and determine the season champion. While not usually referred to as "leagues", but "tours" or "series", these season-long competitions with set events are very similar to league structures in team sports. Examples of this are motorsport , tennis , golf , skiing , beach volleyball and rugby sevens . American college sports are traditionally organized into groups of teams known as conferences . These conferences ordinarily keep league tables and crown champions within

3920-539: The separation between the two, which means there are two MVPs , two Cy Young Award winners, etc. Since its name is constructed differently—a description of the status of two leagues rather than the title of one—it is common to hear "MLB" without "the" attached to it, as in "the most home runs in MLB this year", since one would not say "the Major League Baseball". The common thread between all sports leagues

3990-405: The teams are level after 80 minutes extra time will be played and if the two teams are still level after extra time, a golden point will be played. This will be temporary altered for the 2026 tournament due to its late rescheduling, the exact format to be used remains unknown. Due to the early World Cups being contested between Australia, England, France and New Zealand and the fact rugby league

4060-480: The term league in sports and for sports organizations are misnomers as the term league relates specifically to the form of organization, requiring persons or bodies to be in league together. A sport competition owned and controlled other than by its participant players, teams or clubs is not a league. In many cases, organizations that function as leagues are described using a different term, such as association , conference , division , leaderboard , or series . This

4130-510: The top two teams in the table played in the final, a knockout stage was added, with quarter and semi-finals. Due to the Super League war , players aligned with the Super League competition were not selected by the ARL to represent Australia, which meant the absence of many star players. The tournament, which was also held to celebrate the centenary of the sport, saw over 250,000 people attending

4200-660: The total amount of teams to reach the knockout stage to 14. 1 (2021) 3 (1975, 1995, 2000) 3 (2008, 2013, 2017) 1 (1988) 1 (2017) Top 10 match attendances. Sports league A sports league is a group of individual athletes, sports teams or clubs who form a league to compete against each other and gain points in a specific sport . At its simplest, it may be a local group of amateur athletes who form teams among themselves and compete periodically, at its most complex, it can be an international professional league making large amounts of money and involving dozens of teams and thousands of players. Many uses of

4270-463: The tournament after a newly elected French government withdrew financial support. A day later, New Zealand announced they were considering a bid, but would possibly require a delay to 2026. On 3 August, the IRL announced that the tournament would be postponed to 2026 and held in the southern hemisphere with only 10 teams taking part. It was later confirmed on 24 July 2024 that Australia would host

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4340-455: The tournament until 1968, when Australia and New Zealand hosted and the World Cup final made a return. The World Cup found more success in the 70s with four tournaments being played. The first, the 1972 World Cup where the final was contested between Great Britain and Australia ended 10–10, and the title was awarded to Great Britain by virtue of their superior record in the qualifiers. Great Britain were captained by Welshman Clive Sullivan who

4410-445: The tournament with a number of games co-hosted by Papua New Guinea. With the announcement of the 2025 World Cup being moved to 2026 came confirmation that the following competition would be held in 2030. In the announcement International Rugby League confirmed that the tournament would be held once again as a stand alone competition with the women's and wheelchair tournaments held separately in 2028 and 2029 respectfully, all on

4480-550: The tournament; Australia twelve times, Great Britain three times, and New Zealand once. Australia has been in the final of every World Cup, except the first in 1954, when they came third (considered to be a complete upset at the time, with bookmakers having Australia as strong favourites). The latest World Cup was held in England in 2022 after being delayed by a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic . The Rugby League World Cup

4550-436: The trophy was reinstated for the 2000 tournament. Qualifying rounds were first introduced for the 2000 World Cup . Hosts and teams reaching the knockout rounds of the previous tournament automatically qualify for the next. The remaining spots are achieved through regional qualification tournaments, split between the four International Rugby League confederation Asia-Pacific, Americas, Europe, and Middle East-Africa. Because of

4620-399: Was also in 2013 when The Gnoll , Neath , with a capacity of 5,000 hosted a game between Wales and Cook Islands . Despite this, it was not the lowest attended game; this was in the 2000 World Cup when just 1,497 attended the game between Wales and Lebanon at Stradey Park , Llanelli . The cities with the most stadiums used are Sydney and London with 4 each. Hull and Auckland are

4690-753: Was an initiative of the French who had been campaigning for a competition since 1935. The idea was raised in 1951 by Paul Barrière , the President of the French Rugby League . In 1952, Rugby Football League secretary Bill Fallowfield persuaded the Rugby League Council to support the concept. At a meeting in Blackpool , England in 1953, the International Board accepted Paul Barrière's proposal that France should be

4760-413: Was contested between Australia and England at Lang Park , Brisbane and Australia won by just 6–0, the lowest score in world cup final history. England were chosen to host the 2021 tournament which was postponed to 2022 due to Australia and New Zealand withdrawing due to the COVID-19 pandemic . with organisers expressing a desire to see a total of one million fans attend games. This tournament saw

4830-556: Was regarded as a sporting, commercial, and social success by the IRL. A proposal was put forward in 2016 to hold the 2025 Rugby League World Cup in the United States and Canada, but in December 2018 plans for the tournament to be held in North America were scrapped due to financial concerns. On 11 January 2022, it was announced France would host the tournament in 2025, however on 15 May 2023 France pulled out of hosting

4900-580: Was the first black player to captain any British national sports team. The final at the Stade de Gerland in Lyon witnessed what is (as of 2021) the last British team to win the Rugby League World Cup. In 1975, the competition underwent a radical overhaul with the tournament being held across multiple confederations. Great Britain was split into England and Wales due to Wales wanting to showcase

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