As every national governing body of sport (NGB) knows, achieving international success takes years of painstaking work and meticulously executed strategy. One aspect which surely contributed to England’s victory in the 2025 Women’s Rugby World Cup was home advantage. Winning the bid to host the tournament was, effectively, a strategic triumph that helped pave the way for the Red Roses to lift the trophy.
The influence of Impact 25
Legacy is always an influential component in tournament hosting bids. Back in 2021, the RFU was aware of the availability of a sizeable pot of legacy funding from the UK government, if a strong enough case could be made for receiving it. To establish its Impact 25 plan which would both unlock this funding and support England’s World Cup hosting bid, the RFU commissioned KKP to deliver a radical facility design and national demand evaluation process, focusing on women-friendly clubhouse and ancillary facilities to support the female grassroots game.
Establishing need
Applying its considerable sports facilities knowledge and feasibility study expertise and working closely with RFU colleagues, KKP rounded up 20 current and former women rugby players across a range of ages and playing levels to form two focus groups for discussion. Having used this exercise to gain detailed insight into what female rugby players require from ancillary facilities vs the existing situation, KKP joined forces with Space & Place architects to develop a range of templates for optimal facility design.
Next, came the process of identifying where to implement this design. KKP performed a detailed analysis of club data and membership, complemented by a highly informative consultation process with the RFU facility development team.
Armed with all these insights, KKP went on to analyse demand for women’s facilities by RFU region, assessing the number of existing and potential future female teams within grassroots club settings and their usage requirements. These figures were used as the basis to devise and cost the element of the Impact 25 national plan which is creating and upgrading ancillary facilities for female rugby players all over England.
By specifying conditions which would both encourage more women and girls to participate in the sport and cater properly for a substantial increase in demand, this plan set the scene to capitalise on the impetus provided by the Rugby World Cup.
Securing multiple wins
KKP’s report helped the RFU to convince the UK government to release more than seven and half million pounds of funding for capital projects to carry out its Impact 25 plan. As a result, the NGB was able to present a credible legacy promise which significantly strengthened England’s bid to host.
England’s subsequent victory has, of course, sparked a huge surge in interest in women’s rugby across the country, elevating demand for playing facilities to an unprecedented high. The work undertaken by KKP has, thereby, proved its worth on three counts:
(1) Unlocking funding
(2) Helping win the bid to host
(3) Informing plans to satisfy demand sparked by England’s success which, in turn, will help nurture the next generation of talent.
You could call it a win-win-win!