Women's Rugby World Cup 2025 will 'build towards' Twickenham showpiece

Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025 organisers believe the spread of matches during the tournament will provide an opportunity to “attract new fans across the country”.

During a ticketing update on Tuesday, it was confirmed that more than 400,000 tickets will go on sale for the six-week tournament, starting in September, with over 60 per cent of those priced at £25 or under and children’s admission starting at just £5.

It will be possible for a family of four to attend the opening match of the tournament at the Stadium of Light for as little as £30, however, the most expensive ticket for the Twickenham final will cost £95.

The showpiece match and the bronze final, which will be staged as one of several double headers, will be the only World Cup matches played in London.

Hosts England, who will open their campaign in Sunderland, will play their remaining pool-stage matches in Northampton and Brighton.

Should they emerge from their pool, as they are expected to do comfortably, then England will be guaranteed to play their quarter-final at Bristol’s Ashton Gate.

Sandy Park in Exeter, the venue for last weekend’s Premiership Women’s Rugby (PWR) final, will host the other two last-eight matches while Ashton Gate will stage both semi-finals.

Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025 managing director, Sarah Massey is confident that is the right approach, especially as 95 per cent of the UK population live within two hours travel time of a tournament venue.

“The Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025 final is going to be the pinnacle. There’s going to be big demand to pack the stadium out,” Massey told RugbyPass.

“I think questions have been asked about whether we could put a match at Twickenham in the pool phase or knockout phase. [But] I think the way that we’ve set the venues out, going around the country, starting up in Sunderland to kick it off in the north of England, ending up in Twickenham for the final is absolutely the right decision.

“We’ve got some great venues that will host the quarter-finals and the semi-finals, we’ve got a big stadium at Ashton Gate, and I think everything will build towards Twickenham and I think that’s the right decision.”

She added: “We did an extensive process to identify those venues and make sure that we were going around the country, to make sure that we had every region covered.

“I think it was also really important that we had a lot of matches outside of that south-east region. You might say that we’ve now only got one match in the south-east region, but it just gives the opportunity to attract new fans around our other venues across the country.”

Organisers also defended the price of the most expensive ticket for the final, which will cost nearly twice as much as the top-tier ticket for the UEFA Women’s Euro 2022 final at Wembley two years ago.

“We should take pride in that. The women’s game is growing, it’s hugely exciting,” Paul Lemon, director of ticketing at World Rugby, said.

“We’re confident in those prices. When you compare with previous other sports, it’s easy to compare the price without necessarily looking at the sales volume.

“I think the Euros final is a great example, they probably could have sold that [match] four times over. Again, that was two, three years ago and we’re talking about an event in another year’s time.

“So, the timing’s different, the moment’s different and we’re really excited about this opportunity. But again, we’ve got that huge range of prices, so that slightly more expensive ticket also enables us to be able to this accessible pricing.”

Tickets for the opening match and final will go on pre-sale to Mastercard holders on September 17th – three days after the Red Roses play the Black Ferns at Twickenham – and general pre-sale seven days later.

Fans intending to attend the showpiece tournament are being advised to register their interest by signing up to the official Women’s RWC 2025 website.

“We’re just aiming to have record-breaking attendances for each of our matches and sell as many tickets as we can,” Massey added.

“[We want to] have maximum attendances and have as many new fans coming into women’s rugby as we can and generate that momentum from when we kick off in Sunderland.”

Hosts England, defending champions New Zealand, France, Canada, Ireland, USA, South Africa, Japan and Fiji have already booked their tickets to England.

The winner of this weekend’s South American play-off between Brazil and Colombia will join them while the top six non-qualified nations at the end of WXV 2024 will complete the Women’s RWC 2025 line-up.