The Spanish Rugby Union is close to reaching an agreement that would see rugby internationals played at the iconic Santiago Bernab\u00e9u Stadium.<\/p>\n
The Real Federaci\u00f3n Espa\u00f1ola de Rugby announced in 2025 its intention to host a future Men\u2019s and\/or Women\u2019s Rugby World Cup<\/a> in the future and is currently working with LaLiga and some Spanish football clubs to secure access to large stadia.<\/p>\n The Bernab\u00e9u holds 83,186 spectators, has a retractable roof, and is only beaten for size in Spain<\/a> in terms of seating capacity by Barcelona\u2019s Nou Camp.<\/p>\n In a recent interview with the Spanish outlet ABC, President Juan Carlos Mart\u00edn stated that the union has made significant progress in securing the best venues with the help of the local government and football associations.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are now in a position that we can negotiate and move forward with the process. The next phase of our planning is to determine which stadiums will host the games.<\/p>\n \u201cThe biggest stadiums in Spain are already rugby-approved: Anoeta [Real Sociedad], Bilbao, Metropolitano [Atl\u00e9tico de Madrid], Barcelona [Spotify Camp Nou]. We are close to having the Real Madrid stadium [Santiago Bernab\u00e9u] approved as well.\u201d<\/p>\n The current trend towards using football stadiums has been underway in recent years, with Spain hosting England \u2018A\u2019 at RC Valladolid\u2019s Jos\u00e9 Zorilla and the Men\u2019s Rugby Europe Championship<\/a> Finals at the Club Deportivo Legan\u00e9s Ontime Butarque.<\/p>\n At the same time, Bilbao\u2019s San Mam\u00e9s will host the Investec Champions Cup<\/a> final in 2026 for the second time in the last six years, while the SVNS 2024 Final was played at Atl\u00e9tico de Madrid\u2019s Metropolitano.<\/p>\n After more than two decades away from the the Men\u2019s Rugby World Cup stage, the Los Leones have finally clinched qualification in 2025, which has served as a crucial boost for the growth of the sport in the country.<\/p>\n Moreover, the homologation of these stadiums will serve not only the men\u2019s game but also the women\u2019s, as the Spanish Union is also bidding to host the 2037 edition.<\/p>\n With Argentina<\/a> publicly stating its intention to host an edition of the Men\u2019s Rugby World Cup, Spain is looking to match the Pumas<\/a> candidacy, with the Bernab\u00e9u potentially serving as one of the main venues.<\/p>\n The process for selecting the host nation for RWC 2035 started last October at World Rugby\u2019s General Assembly in London.<\/p>\n The host nation will be appointed by World Rugby Council in November 2027, eight years in advance of the tournament.<\/p>\n As part of the process, site visits and feasibility studies will be undertaken later this year and into 2027, before a preferred host is identified in May 2027.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Spanish Rugby Union is close to reaching an agreement that would see rugby internationals played at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":487236,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-487235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=487235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487235\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/487236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=487235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=487235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=487235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}