The Americas Rugby Championship is to introduce the system of promotion / relegation. Confirmation of this was made by Chile Rugby President Cristian Rudloff in an interview with CDO. The incoming policy will change international rugby competition in the Americas notably, making every match all the more important.

ARC

Promotion / relegation will be added for the 2020 ARC, the next edition of the annual rugby competition. Since its inception in 2016 the same six competitors have featured every year – Argentina XV, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Uruguay, and the USA.

These same countries are the leading countries, in ranking from the Americas today. However, when the competition began Paraguay was ranked higher than Brazil. The choice to include Brazil was initially questioned though criticisms were quickly silenced as Os Tupis recorded victories.

Brazil finished 4th in the 2019 ARC; 5th in 2018; 4th in 2017; and 5th in 2016. Finishing bottom of the table every year was Chile. This in itself is a reflection of not only Brazil’s progress but also Chile’s inability to field the strongest Cóndores team with regularity.

ARCh

Following the success of the ARC the ARCh was established. The second division of the Americas began in 2018 as a Four Nations competition. Competing in the annual year were Colombia, Guyana, Mexico, and Paraguay.

Colombia were the winners while the bottom placed Guyana would ultimately miss out on qualifying for 2019 with there Cayman Islands instead successfully qualifying. This is enabled due to a structural regional qualifying path.

The new policy will see the winner of the ARCh having the chance of qualifying for the ARC. The incoming promotion / relegation format will see the ARCh champion facing the bottom team from the ARC with the winner qualifying for the next ARC and the loser entering the ARCh.

Six Nations

The case for such a policy to be implemented elsewhere has been argued for yet has not transpired. The notable instance is that of the Six Nations. The improvement of the Celtic Unions over the past decade has seen a wide gap emerge and be sustained with Italy firmly the bottom of the six competitors.

At the same time the improvement of Georgia has not seen any structural altering which means there is no path for the Georgians into the Six Nations Championship. Regardless if Georgia wins every match and Italy loses every match there is no automatic promotion / relegation or a fixture to determine competitors for the following year.

The new promotion / relegation structure being implemented for the ARC and ARCh will ensure that the competitors in the ARC are all there based on merit.

RWC 2023 Qualifiers

The 2020, and 2021 editions of the ARC are to double towards Rugby World Cup Qualifiers. Any team already qualified for RWC 2023 will continue to participate though points from matches involving such a team will not count towards the RWC qualifiers themselves.

Such a system is already in place in Europe. Georgia finished third in Pool C to pre-qualify for RWC 2019. The Georgians continued to compete in the Rugby Europe Championship which doubled for RWC 2019 qualifiers. This saw Georgia facing Belgium, Germany, Romania, Russia, and Spain home-and-away in 2017, and 2018.