'Can’t hide disappointment': IRL reacts after France withdraw as 2025 Rugby League World Cup hosts

France were awarded their first tournament in half a century in early 2022 following the collapse of North America's bid.

It was due to be the third major sports event held in the country in consecutive years after the Rugby World Cup in 2023 and the Olympics in Paris in 2024.

However, organisers have pulled the plug on a showpiece that would have featured men's, women's, wheelchair and youth tournaments following an exceptional board meeting on Monday.

“Despite all the work carried out by the organising committee, it hasn’t been possible to fully secure the risk of a deficit," read a statement from France2025.

“Despite the interest shown in this unique sport for all events with four competitions in one and accessible to all thanks to our ticketing rates, and despite the desire shown by several cities across France to host World Cup matches, the board has to decide to renounce organising this major international competition, which the International Rugby League had entrusted to France.

"The conditions of financial viability initially defined by the State to support the project, set in January 2022, were not fully met, despite the search for solutions and the additional three months granted by the State to the organising committee at the end of 2022.

“This difficult decision was taken so as not to threaten the robustness of the major international sporting event models that France now wishes to promote."

France's decision to pull out is a hammer blow to international rugby league on the back of a successful World Cup in England.

The International Rugby League board will meet on Wednesday to begin the process of finding another host country.

IRL chair Troy Grant said: “It’s difficult to express how disappointed I am with this news.

"There’s no secret as to how important the strengthening of France as a rugby league nation is to our global game and central to our strategic plans.

“The RLWC in France in 2025 was always an ambitious project given the unprecedented short lead in time due to the pandemic, however it had the advantage of following and leveraging off the widely acknowledged RLWC2021 success.

“Despite the historically short lead-in period, Luc Lacoste and his LOC worked tirelessly and achieved so much in a short time. Luc has brought a renewed zest and interest to French Rugby League during his tenure and the World Cup was planned to be the springboard for further development of the sport in France.

“The factors that impacted on the bid team’s ability to complete the early structure of the tournament, such as the economic crisis and, in particular, inflationary pressure on host town council budgets, undermined their ability to secure adequate securities for the event to satisfy the government’s strict conditional benchmarks, put forward from the beginning of the process, for the tournament to proceed."

He added: “I respect the French Government’s decision amid the challenges they are facing but I can’t hide my disappointment, that I conveyed clearly to them in person.

“Despite our focus having been on France, we will now accelerate our consideration of other contingency options.”