New plans.

World Rugby has today announced plans for a revised international calendar following the disruption to the season as a result of the ongoing crisis.

A temporary international window between 24 October and 5 December has been proposed that accommodates for teams on both sides of the hemisphere.

In the north, this window will accommodate the postponed men’s and women’s Six Nations matches at the end of October, a rest weekend on 7 November and a programme of international matches involving the Six Nations and invited teams hosted in Europe from 14 November through to 5 December.

The Rugby Championship 2020 will be hosted in full in a single country (likely new Zealand) over a reduced six-week between 7 November and 12 December. Special measures will be implemented to deal with any government-required quarantine period prior to the start of the competition.

The rescheduling of the domestic, European and international calendars will accommodate the ability for the professional clubs to have access to their star southern hemisphere international players for the completion of the postponed and rescheduled 2019/20 seasons at a time in which they would have ordinarily been on international duty in August and September.

The recommendation to temporarily change the Regulation 9 windows will be tabled at a virtual meeting of the World Rugby Council on 30 July.

Subject to approval, the full schedule of matches will be announced by the respective union and international competition owners in due course. The current Regulation 9 windows will return to normal after 13 December.