Teixeira da Silva, Jaime A.2024-10-172024-10-172024http://hdl.handle.net/10230/62746application/pdfRugby is an exclusive and elite sport. The current format of the Rugby World Cup only allows for 20 nations to compete across four pools. In this commentary, it is argued that the term “nation” and “country” are confounded, allowing an exceptional status of one country to prevail, that of the United Kingdom (UK), which can be represented in a Rugby World Cup by as many as four nations, England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. This gives the impression of a quantitatively unfair advantage to the UK relative to all other nations. It is recognized, however, that there is a strong historical, geographic, cultural and social reason for this current structure. In order for rugby to become more democratized and internationalized, and less Anglo- or Commonwealth-centric, a change in the culture of rugby and its leadership and management is needed. In this paper, to expand team diversity and inclusivity in the Rugby World Cup, a two-group structure is proposed, in which each group is represented by four pools, with five teams in each pool. A strictly meritocracy-based competitive structure would allow a greater cultural diversity of teams to be included in the top competitive ranks, fortifying the entertainment value for the fan base, but without compromising the quality of the sport or the competition.democratization; elite sport; fair representation; internationalization; World Rugbyinfo:eu-repo/semantics/article