The draws for the Mens, Womens and Wheelchair World Cup in 2021 will be in January 2020. But how will they be done?
In a humorous social media post, the official World Cup channel posted the method which will be carried out in all three draws.
Starting with the Men’s, the draw starts with England, Australia, New Zealand and Tonga, who will all play in separate groups.
The remaining 12 sides are placed into three pots and take up the remaining three places in each group.
In a separate twist, in order to include diversity, each group has to have at least one Pacific Island nation in it and one European side.
That means Lebanon will not be included for consideration to go into Group A (with England), and they will re-enter the draw once Papua New Guinea, Samoa or Fiji have been selected.
The rest of the sides will then be drawn in without any extra changes.
Moving on to the Women;’ draw, that consists of two groups of four. England as the host, and Australia as the defending champions are automatically put into Groups A and B.
The rest of the teams are then placed into two pots and drawn into the respective groups.
The wheelchair draw will take the same format, with England, the hosts and France, the reigning champions, being drawn automatically into Groups A and B. The remaining six teams will then be drawn into the respective groups.
It is set to be a historic affair, this will be the first World Cup where the Mens, Womens and Wheelchair tournaments will take place at the same time.
The draw will take place on January 16th 2020.
