Rugby World Cup qualification is a process that determines which nations will compete at a Rugby World Cup.
Unlike previous tournaments (where eight teams, the quarter-finalists from the preceding World Cup, qualified automatically and twelve places were available through qualification) the 2011 World Cup will be contested by twelve automatic qualifiers / seeds (the teams who finished in the top three of the groups at the 2007 World Cup) and eight qualifiers.
The qualification system for the remaining eight places will be region-based with Europe and the Americas allocated two qualifying places, Africa, Asia and Oceania one place each, with the last place determined by a play-off.
Read more about Rugby World Cup Qualification: Development
Famous quotes containing the words world and/or cup:
“Communism is a proposition to structure the world more reasonably, a proposition for changing the world. As such, we have to analyze it and, if we deem it reasonable, act upon it.”
—Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990)
“Sisters define their rivalry in terms of competition for the gold cup of parental love. It is never perceived as a cup which runneth over, rather a finite vessel from which the more one sister drinks, the less is left for the others.”
—Elizabeth Fishel (20th century)