The highly anticipated 2013 World Cup rugby in Britain will feature up to 12 teams, an increase of participation considering the growing popularity of the sport worldwide.

The Rugby Football League (RFL) stated that the ten teams that participated in Australia last year showed high quality rugby that the officials believe that increasing the competing countries will be good for the sport.

Richard Lewis, RFL chairman, said that the business plan that they have set up proposed 12 countries to compete by 2013. He added that they are still working hard in order to achieve this goal.

This will serve as the very first World Cup that will take place in United Kingdom since year 2000 when RFL dealt with massive debts due to the disaster in financial aspects during that time. The under-attended competition was plagued with bad weather and lesser crowd participation.

RFL officials are confident this time that they won’t encounter the same mistakes as in the past. They’ll be scouting for venues that can withstand bad weather and other factors.

Lewis revealed that they will be offering tickets at competitive rates in order to attract real rugby fans in watching the competitions come 2013.