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Venues confirmed for 2025 and 2026 European finals
By Josh Raisey
The Investec Champions Cup final is set to return to Cardiff's Principality Stadium next year for the first time since 2014, the EPCR have confirmed.
It will be the eighth time that the European final has been staged in the Welsh capital, with the 74,000-capacity stadium also hosting the Challenge Cup final.
The EPCR have also announced that the San Mamés Stadium in Bilbao, Spain, will host the 2026 finals for the second time, having played host to Leinster's triumph over Racing 92 in the Champions Cup in 2018 and Cardiff's victory over Gloucester in the Challenge Cup.
Chairman of EPCR Dominic McKay said after the venues were confirmed: "We are delighted today to confirm Cardiff and Bilbao as the host cities of the 2025 and 2026 EPCR Finals Weekend.
"In returning to Cardiff 30 years on from the iconic first Final means a great to deal to us and our friends here in the city, and we will celebrate the milestone appropriately. We know this rugby heartland will not only be proud to host this historic weekend, but will welcome rugby fans from across the world to join us in Cardiff for our EPCR Finals Weekend in 2025.
"For 2026, we cannot wait to return to Bilbao, which hosted a superb celebration of rugby in a world-class destination in 2018. Our selection of host cities such as this reflects our intention to continually deliver outstanding experiences for fans, clubs and stakeholders for our marquee weekend. We know Bilbao will attract spectators from a varied demographic, bringing our sport to even more fans in a stunning host city.
"We would like to thank the many bidding cities for their great enthusiasm in hosting our Finals Weekend. We were delighted to receive so many bids and expressions of interest from across the world. The final decisions were certainly challenging given the high standard of all bidders, and we are looking forward to working with Cardiff, Bilbao and all the stakeholders to deliver two more superb Finals Weekends."
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Brumbies are looking good and if they keep their home form up a final is not beyond the realms of possibility. They showed against the Hurricanes exactly how clinical they can be as they absorbed pressure in that contest while also scoring points and applying their own pressure. Reds are well placed as well but need to find consistency. They are building a longer term project with a young side and plenty of quality players. Been surprising to see the strength of Aussie sides this year after the debacle of the world cup. Have NZ sides gotten weaker? Have Aussie sides gotten stronger? A bit of both I would say. Whatever the case its good to see some actual competition between NZ and Aus sides again and thats exactly what the fans wanted and is probably driving better viewership numbers. All of this can only be healthy for Aus and Super Rugby and I hope the Brumbies go all the way.
Go to commentsDead time reductions are important as is ball in play time increases. Premiership leads the way in terms of ball in play and Northern refereeing standards around the breakdown has sped up the game significantly. Super Rugby is trying new things but its not leading the way in terms of making gains in reducing dead time and ball in play time. Northern administrators are also not against speeding up the game, on the contrary they want a faster game and have been trying things and are embracing increasing the speed of rugby. Super Rugby isnt providing a blueprint for anything, its just part the agreed upon blueprint that administrators across the world are moving to.
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