The biggest sides in the northern and southern hemispheres clash in a new international competition that kicked off on Saturday 4 July. Here’s everything you need to know...
The Nations Championship is bringing together the rugby giants of the Six Nations and the Nations Championship – along with Fiji and Japan – in a new biennial competition.
With games played (mostly) in the southern hemisphere in July, and in Europe in November, the new tournament is designed to bring a competitive edge to the traditional summer and autumn internationals.
But how does the new competition work? How is the winner decided? Will there be promotion and relegation from the Nations Championship? And why are some of July’s “southern hemisphere” matches being played in Cardiff, Liverpool and Edinburgh?
All these questions and more will be answered below in our Nations Championship explainer.
- Find Nations Championship 2026 results, fixtures, squads and more in our in-depth guide to this year’s competition.
Nations Championship 2026: At a glance
– Southern hemisphere fixture dates: Saturday 4 July-Saturday 18 July 2026
– Northern hemisphere fixture dates: Friday 6 November-Saturday 21 November 2026
– Finals weekend dates: Friday 27 November-Sunday 29 November 2026
– Participating teams: Argentina, Australia, England, Fiji, France, Ireland, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Scotland, South Africa, Wales
– Broadcasters: ITV (UK – free), Virgin Media (Ireland – free), TF1 (France – free), Stan Sport (Australia), Sky Sport (New Zealand), SuperSport (South Africa), Sky Italia (Italy), Wowow (Japan)
1. What is the Nations Championship?
The Nations Championship is a biennial international tournament featuring 12 teams – six from the northern hemisphere and six from the southern hemisphere. (For the purposes of the tournament, Japan have been placed in the south.)
The tournament has been created by Six Nations Rugby and SANZAAR.
2. Which teams are competing?
The Six Nations sides (England, France, Ireland, Scotland, Italy and Wales), the four Rugby Championship teams (New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and Argentina), plus two invitational teams in Japan and Fiji.
3. When will the games be played?
The Nations Championship will take place in years when there is no Rugby World Cup or British & Irish Lions tour. The competition is designed to “enhance the existing July and November international windows within the rugby calendar”.
The July fixtures are being played across three weekends from Saturday 4 July to Saturday 18 July.
The November fixtures will be played over three weekends running from Friday 6 November to Saturday 21 November.
This year’s competition will conclude with a finals weekend at Allianz Stadium, Twickenham, running from Friday 27 November to Sunday 29 November.
4. What is the format of the new competition?
Instead of the traditional summer tours where teams would tour a single country, northern hemisphere sides will face three different opponents. The Six Nations teams form the ‘Europe’ group and the southern hemisphere sides are known as the ‘Rest of the World’. In July, the European teams head south to play their three games and in November the Rest of the World make the reciprocal visit to Europe.
Across both the July and November blocks, a team will play every side in their opposing group. For example, this summer England will play South Africa, Fiji and Argentina away. In the autumn, they will play Australia, Japan and New Zealand at home.
5. Where can I watch the Nations Championship?
Fans in the UK, Ireland and France can watch matches for free:
- UK – ITV
- Ireland – Virgin Media
- France – TF1
Australia’s home games will also be available for free across the Nine network.
Elsewhere the games will behind a paywall:
- Australia – Stan Sport
- New Zealand – Sky Sport
- South Africa – SuperSport
- Italy – Sky Italia
- Japan – Wowow
Read more: How to watch the Nations Championship 2026 from anywhere
6. Why are some games taking place in the northern hemisphere in July?
Fiji have sacrificed home advantage to take part in the championship. The country’s rugby ground in Suva, HFC Bank Stadium, doesn’t meet competition requirements and can only hold around 15,000 people.
When Scotland played there last summer, losing 29-14, there were only 12,000 fans in attendance – well short of the 25,000 capacity that the Nations Championship demands.
Instead, Fiji played Wales in Cardiff, although not at the Principality Stadium but at the Cardiff City Stadium, home of both Cardiff City FC and the Welsh national football team. They then faced England at Everton FC’s new Hill Dickinson Stadium in the first rugby fixture to take place at the venue, before ‘hosting’ Scotland at Scottish Gas Murrayfield to round off their opening set of fixtures.
Fiji Rugby chairman John Sanday says playing home games in the UK was something Fiji couldn’t turn down due to the “economic windfall” it will bring.
“It’s a transformational opportunity for us,” he said. “Never before would we have been able to have this kind of revenues… which we then can invest back into our facilities and high performance.”
7. How do you win the new competition? Where will the finals be?
The point of the tournament is to unify traditional standalone summer and autumn Tests. It’s similar to what happened in football with the Nations League, which was created to add more meaning to previous friendly matches.
After the last three rounds of the Nations Championship in November, there is a Finals Weekend in London at Allianz Stadium, Twickenham from Friday 27 November to Sunday 29 November.
Every team will have a ‘Finals game’ against the team that finished in the same position as them in the corresponding group. For example, if Wales finish fifth in the Europe/North group, they will face the fifth-place finisher in the South group.
The winners of the competition will be crowned on 29 November when the first-place finishers of the North and South groups meet in the grand final.
To buy match tickets, fans should go through the usual host union channels. An adult ticket for all three days of the Finals Weekend starts at £242 or you can buy a ‘Support Your Team’ ticket, covering both games played that day, for £164.80. See the Nations Championship website for the various options available.
8. Why did Ireland not travel to Japan to play the Brave Blossoms?
Eagle-eyed fans may have noticed that Ireland facedJapan in Australia in July.
Andy Farrell’s men took on the Brave Blossoms at McDonald Jones Stadium in Newcastle, NSW on Saturday 11 July. The fixture was the first neutral Test to be staged in Australia since the pandemic. The venue last saw international action in 2025 when the Wallabies beat Fiji ahead of the British & Irish Lions tour.
Before the match, Japan coach Eddie Jones expressed his annoyance about the Ireland fixture taking place in Australia.
“You know why we’re playing Ireland in Newcastle? Ireland have all the power at World Rugby,” Jones said on the Rugby Unity podcast. “So we have to play our home game, that should be in Tokyo, in Australia to make sure Ireland don’t have to travel too much – let’s be frank about it.
“We have to just suck it up and that’s what happens when you’re not a major political power at the table.”
Ireland head to New Zealand for the last of their July Nations Championship fixtures.
9. What about the other international teams?
Outside the main championship, another 12 sides will compete in the second-tier Nations Cup which takes place concurrently. The first batch of matches take place across the Americas this summer.
The teams taking part have been split into two pools and all 12 have qualified for the 2027 World Cup in Australia. Pool A (Americas and Pacific) comprises Canada, Chile, Samoa, Tonga, Uruguay and USA. Pool B (Europe, Africa and Asia) comprises Georgia, Hong Kong, Portugal, Spain, Romania and Zimbabwe.
Each team plays three Tests in each window, but unlike in the Nations Championship there is no Finals day, so the team topping the table will take the plaudits. If teams are level on points, teams will be separated first by number of wins, and then by points difference.
10. Will there be promotion and relegation between the Nations Championship and Nations Cup?
Not currently. World Rugby has said that all stakeholders will look at potentially introducing this from the 2030 edition onwards.
Will the Nations Championship Tests count towards the world rankings?
Yes, just like normal summer and autumn Tests, the games will contribute to the rankings. South Africa are currently the world’s number one team, ahead of New Zealand, Ireland and France.
11. How can I keep up with the Nations Championship action?
Rugby World has made a handy wall chart to help you keep up with the Nations Championship as rugby’s newest competition progresses. It lists every match across the summer and autumn, including the finals weekend taking place at Allianz Stadium, Twickenham, in late November.
The wall chart can be downloaded as a PDF here, so you can print it off, stick it on your wall and fill in the results as they happen.
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Facts Only
The Nations Championship is a biennial rugby tournament.
Twelve teams participate: Argentina, Australia, England, Fiji, France, Ireland, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Scotland, South Africa, and Wales.
The competition is organized by Six Nations Rugby and SANZAAR.
Southern hemisphere fixtures occur from July 4 to July 18, 2026.
Northern hemisphere fixtures occur from November 6 to November 21, 2026.
The finals weekend takes place from November 27 to November 29, 2026, at Allianz Stadium, Twickenham.
Teams are split into two groups: "Europe" and "Rest of the World."
Japan is categorized within the "Rest of the World" group.
Fiji played July home matches in Cardiff, Liverpool, and Edinburgh due to stadium capacity requirements.
A second-tier competition called the Nations Cup features 12 different teams.
Match results contribute to world rankings.
Broadcasters include ITV, Virgin Media, TF1, Stan Sport, Sky Sport, SuperSport, Sky Italia, and Wowow.
Executive Summary
The Nations Championship is a new biennial rugby competition designed to provide more competitive structure to the traditional summer and autumn international windows. By grouping twelve top-tier nations into "Europe" and "Rest of the World" brackets, the tournament ensures a reciprocal exchange of home and away fixtures, culminating in a finals weekend in London where teams face opponents who finished in the same rank within their respective groups.
The implementation of the tournament reveals logistical and political frictions. Fiji has relocated its "home" matches to the UK to secure necessary revenue and meet stadium capacity mandates, while Japan's home match against Ireland was moved to Australia. Japan's coach has attributed this move to the political influence of major rugby powers. Concurrent with this event, the Nations Cup provides a secondary tier for twelve other qualified World Cup teams, though promotion and relegation between the two tiers are not currently in place, pending future review.
Full Take
The strongest version of this narrative presents the Nations Championship as a modernization of rugby's international calendar, transforming fragmented friendly matches into a cohesive, meritocratic league with high stakes and clear financial incentives.
The structural pattern here is one of centralized power. While the tournament is framed as a "unification" of the sport, the logistical realities suggest a hierarchy where smaller nations (Fiji, Japan) are forced to concede home-field advantage and sovereignty over their fixtures to accommodate the financial and political preferences of the "major powers." The move of Japan's home game to Australia and Fiji's "home" games to England and Scotland illustrates a system where the "global" nature of the sport is secondary to the economic viability and comfort of the dominant unions.
The root cause is the commercialization of international rugby, echoing the transition of football's friendlies into the Nations League. This prioritizes broadcast value and "finals" excitement over the traditional development of the game in emerging markets. The cost is borne by the fans and infrastructure of the "invitational" teams, while the benefit accrues to the governing bodies and the established elite.
Patterns detected: none
How does the "economic windfall" for a nation like Fiji balance against the loss of home-crowd inspiration for its players and fans? If the "political power" described by Eddie Jones persists, does this tournament truly unify the sport or merely codify a two-tier class system within the elite bracket? What would a truly equitable distribution of home-field advantage look like in a global competition?
Counterstrike Scan: A coordinated campaign to push this narrative would use "innovation" and "competitiveness" as smokescreens to hide the erosion of sovereignty for smaller nations. The current content is standard sports reporting and does not match a malicious influence pattern.