"So frustrating" - The regions of the world that couldn’t access World Cup qualification
Rugby NewsThursday, 23 October 2025 at 12:00
As the final four teams prepare to battle for the last remaining place at the 2027 Rugby World Cup — Samoa, Belgium, Namibia and Paraguay — a striking reality sits beneath the surface of rugby’s so-called global expansion: for entire regions of the world, the tournament was never even a possibility.
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When the dust settles on the four-nation Repechage, the 24-team World Cup in Australia will be complete. Twenty-three teams are already confirmed. Yet, for two regions — Oceania and North America — the road to qualification was blocked before it even began.
World Rugby tied its qualification process for both Oceania and North America to the Pacific Nations Cup (PNC), a competition with no qualification pathway leading into it. Fiji, Japan, Tonga, Samoa, Canada and the United States took part — and, in doing so, effectively secured their World Cup participation, considering that Samoa are the only nation not yet qualified, with one last chance in the Repecharge. For every other rugby nation across those regions, qualification was impossible from day one.
That exclusion extended even to Mexico, a country of 130 million people, where rugby has been quietly growing thanks to passionate volunteers and a small but committed player base.
Yet because the PNC was the designated route and had no open entry, Mexico, along with other nations in Central America, the Caribbean, and the Pacific Islands beyond the traditional rugby powers, never had a chance.
This comes at a time when World Rugby is promoting its vision of global growth. In 2022, the governing body announced that the 2031 Men’s Rugby World Cup and 2033 Women’s Rugby World Cup would both be hosted in the United States.
The decision split opinion — supporters saw an opportunity to tap into the world’s biggest sports market, while critics questioned whether the U.S. rugby infrastructure was ready.
In mid-2025, World Rugby revealed a plan to invest between $250 and $270 million over the next five years to strengthen the sport in America. The money is aimed at community rugby development, women’s rugby, fan engagement, and high-profile fixtures across the country.
But for many in the wider Americas, that announcement only underscored the inequities in rugby’s global system.
Few voices capture that frustration better than Alejandro “Bola” Pradillo, the first Mexican player to break into Major League Rugby (MLR). After signing with the San Diego Legion in 2024, Pradillo made history at the top level of North American rugby — only to find himself without a club this summer after the league’s chaotic off-season, which saw the Legion merge with LA Rugby Club and several teams fold.
For Pradillo, the instability of professional rugby in North America mirrors the structural barriers facing emerging nations like his own.
"It's incredible that World Rugby has just shut the doors to all of the countries in the Americas apart from the USA, Canada and Argentina. I can't even say Uruguay because they had a good fight to get into the World Cup, beating Chile is not easy.
"But they decided to give more spots for Pacific rugby, make it easier for USA and Canada but the other nations are completely excluded. We don't even have the chance to play Test match rugby.
"We don't have the opportunity, we don't have the investment, we have people that could be seeing a potential market over here, which means our possibility to grow is non-existent and that's so frustrating."
Pradillo’s words highlight a reality that contradicts World Rugby’s stated goals. Despite the organisation’s multimillion-dollar investment in the U.S., countries like Mexico are left to scrape together funding, fixtures, and visibility on their own.
"We were supposed to play in Europe this year and at the last minute, World Rugby said no. If you're giving $250 million to the USA, and yes the World Cup will be there, but you can maybe give $1 million to this country, or $1 million to another country.
"Let them play two or three Test matches, send coaches that you prefer to try and create something in these countries. But they don't want to give us the opportunity and they're being so closed about it."
For players like Pradillo — who has trained and played in South Africa and New Zealand — the difference between professional rugby and the amateur level in countries like Mexico grows starker each year.
"I've been exposed to pro rugby, and I see the differences between a Mexico Test match and pro rugby, even Currie Cup First Division. And the gap is becoming bigger and bigger because rugby is becoming more specific, more technical, more tactical, quicker and we're losing the race. Right now, it is a race that we are not even apart of, we are just watching people run. It is sad."
The 2027 Rugby World Cup will showcase an expanded field of 24 teams — a move that was supposed to make the tournament more inclusive. Yet for most of Oceania and North America, it has done the opposite.
By tying qualification to closed competitions, World Rugby has effectively shut out dozens of nations before a ball was kicked. And for the players, coaches, and fans in those countries, it’s hard not to see it as a betrayal of the sport’s supposed global spirit.
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