Twenty nations qualified for the final series: Argentina Australia Canada England Fiji France Georgia (the state of the former Soviet Union, not the one in USA) Ireland Italy Japan Namibia New Zealand Romania Samoa Scotland South Africa Tonga Uraguay USA Wales.
Even more nations are members of the International Rugby Union, and have contested previous RWC final series. It's the world's second most popular football code, after football (called soccer in some countries) itself. American Football is an "also ran" in the rank of world footballs, ranking behind football (soccer), Rugby and Rugby League (an offshoot of Rugby) based on the number of participating nations (but almost certainly ahead of Rugby League on number of fans). It would lead Australian Football on fan numbers but would be about par with it in terms of worldwide awareness and popularity. Gaelic Football is somewhere behind. Minor football codes played in only one location, such as the games played by teams in medieval costumes at Italian festivals, and the mass scrums played between English villages once a year, would rank last but always seem to get onto TV news nevertheless. My apologies to fans of football codes that I've neglected. regards, Anthony Farr ----- Original Message ----- From: "Len Paris" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Exactly how many countries participate in the Rugby World Cup? > > Len >
