Ashton Gate confirmed as host venue for Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025

Ashton Gate Stadium is proud to be one of the host venues for the Women's Rugby World Cup 2025, when the biggest-ever celebration of women’s rugby comes to England.

Image: Jenny Hutchinson, Venue Director at Ashton Gate Stadium, Kathryn Davis, Managing Director at Visit West and Mayor of Bristol, Marvin Rees. Credit: Ashton Gate / Fever Pitch

World Rugby and the RFU, with support from the UK Government, have confirmed the host cities, venues and tournament dates with exactly two years to go until the 10th edition of the women’s pinnacle global tournament takes centre stage. 

Kicking off in exactly two years on 22 August 2025 and concluding with the final on 27 September 2025, the showcase event will be the most accessible ever. The countrywide format means an unparalleled opportunity to see, engage with and support the stars of the women’s game.

Following a competitive selection process, the final roster of host cities and venues reflects the tournament’s core mission of growing the sport, taking rugby across the country and engaging with diverse communities. All will provide a family-focused festival of rugby. 

For the first time ever, the elite women’s rugby tournament will be hosted across eight venues and cities in England with 16 teams competing to be crowned world champions.

While the full match schedule and ticketing details will be announced next year, the milestone two-year celebration and confirmation of dates and venues provides the ability for fans across England to start to plan their Rugby World Cup 2025 experience. 

Jenny Hutchinson, Venue Director at Ashton Gate Stadium, said: “We are incredibly proud to be selected as one of the host venues for the Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025. There’s been a lot of work and collaboration behind the scenes to make this a reality, not least working with our home football and rugby teams to make the schedules work, and we’re all hugely excited to be able to host some of these games at Ashton Gate. We’ve hosted a number of international games here, in both football and rugby – each time setting and breaking new records for attendances, so it was a no-brainer for us to bring key stakeholders in the city together to put a compelling bid to be one of the host venues.”

Mayor of Bristol, Marvin Rees, said: “It’s amazing for Bristol to be chosen to be a host city of the 2025 Rugby World Cup. We set out a number of years ago with sports partners from across Bristol to be a place that can bring world-class sporting events to the city for people to share in and this is the fulfilment of that vision. This is another opportunity to showcase Bristol to the world. We have a great track record of hosting major sporting events, including the Red Roses’ record-breaking 73-7 win against Wales at Ashton Gate last year. We want young Bristolians to be inspired by watching Rugby World Cup matches in our city and to start playing themselves. There’s a brilliant local set up here, with a growing number of girls and young women taking up rugby. Hopefully bringing the Rugby World Cup to Bristol will help encourage even more new players to lace up their boots, developing the next generation of players like Lark Atkin-Davies and Amber Reed.”

Kathryn Davis, Managing Director of Visit West said: “We are really thrilled about the announcement of Bristol being one of the host cities for the Women’s Rugby World Cup in 2025. It has been a huge amount of work from teams across the city to get to this point, and we are delighted to have the opportunity to raise the profile of the city in a major sporting tournament, bringing a huge boost to our visitor economy.”

Lark Atkin-Davies, Red Roses and Bristol Bears Women player, said: “Women’s sport in the general is on the up, our fanbase has been building massively and you saw it when England played at Twickenham in the Women’s Six Nations. We’ll fill Ashton Gate with fans that will make loads of noise as when we last played here it was an incredible atmosphere and I’m excited for more of that for the Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025.”

The Women's Rugby World Cup 2021 smashed records across the board with more than 150,000 fans attending across the tournament, 1.8 million viewers on average in England and New Zealand tuned into the final with more than 156 million video views on social media. Powerful personalities were born, and a new generation of accessible and relatable role models championed change. 

RWC 2025 aims to continue to raise the bar for women in rugby, inspiring the next generation of young players and supercharging the growth of women’s sport in England and across the globe. The Rugby World Cup Impact Programme, delivered by the RFU in partnership with the UK Government and Sport England, will also create more opportunities for females than ever before across all levels of the game through its volunteer, coaching and internship programmes.

World Rugby Chairman Sir Bill Beaumont said: “Following the record-breaking success of Rugby World Cup 2021 in New Zealand, women’s rugby has built an incredibly strong foundation and as one of the fastest growing sports in the world, RWC 2025 is set to take the game to the next level as the biggest celebration of women’s rugby with fans and players very much at its heart. We look forward to continuing to collaborate with all our partners as we strive to deliver a world-class and historic event that will leave a lasting legacy, both in England and around the world as we aim to inspire millions of new players and fans and continue to grow the game we love.”

UK Sports Minster Stuart Andrew added: "Congratulations to all the selected host cities and venues. Staging events like the Women's Rugby World Cup will further cement the UK’s position as a global home of major sporting events. We support the RFU's and World Rugby's ambitious plans to host matches right across England and make the tournament the most well-attended in the history of the sport - setting a benchmark for future World Cups. It promises to be a memorable occasion as we showcase the best of women's rugby union to a worldwide audience, and continue to break barriers for women's sport."

Following the two years to go milestone, all eyes will turn to England later this year at the conclusion of the men’s Rugby World Cup 2023 as the road to England 2025 is launched alongside our partner venues and cities ahead of what promises to be a record-breaking event for women’s rugby in 2025. To be the first to hear all the latest news updates including ticketing information, fans can register here.