12 Stadiums For Rugby Cup

Fifteen venues offered up their names as candidates and the final 12 were selected by Japan Rugby 2019.

World Rugby chairman Bernard Lapasset commented, “This is an important milestone for the tournament. Now we know exactly where the matches will be staged in Japan and, more importantly, the people of those cities and fans around the world can start planning for the big event.”

The largest venue is Tokyo’s 80,000-capacity New National Stadium, which will be built for the 2020 Olympics and whose construction start has been stalled because of opposition to its size and environmental impact.

The smallest is the 15,000-seat Kamaishi Recovery Memorial Stadium in the coastal industrial city of Kamaishi, which was partially destroyed by the earthquake and tsunami of 2011. Kamaishi, the home to a major steel-manufacturer, was once considered Japan’s capital for rugby due to the steelmaker’s very powerful semi-pro team, which produced a number of stars.

Rugby was a very popular sport in the ’60s through the ’80s thanks to high profile high school and university teams, but has since been eclipsed by soccer and baseball.