What International Football Can Learn from Rugby and Cricket

Credits: Gareth Copley/Getty Images

Association Football, Rugby Union, and Cricket are the UK’s three most-followed team sports, and all three have been widely exported abroad.

However, one cannot help but notice the similarities in the overall presentation of international rugby and cricket, and the differences between those and international football outings.

It’s not a secret that the international game is worth a whole lot more in rugby and cricket than in football (notwithstanding other factors, which are to be put aside for now). Here is how football can bring value to its elite international level, and the teams involved, without sacrificing the prosperous club competitions:

Team Identity

Unlike in football, national teams in rugby and cricket don’t feel like merely made-up selections of top players, but like institutions with legacies that are built up on an annual basis.

There are many reasons for that. Firstly, because cricket, for instance, preaches respect for each player from both teams on the pitch, nationalistic passions (such as the ones seen at UEFA/FIFA games in the Balkans or even in Western Europe at times) give way to recognition for individual achievements. Those then become embedded not so much in the national flag but in the team crest – even in countries like India where cricket is everything.

Another major difference is more vivid in rugby union, specifically in the Southern Hemisphere, where the four top teams (Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Argentina) are more commonly referred to withtheir nicknames (Wallabies, All-Blacks, Springboks, and Los Pumas) than by their states’ names. That establishes a team identity independent of national politics and demagogy, but in line with the country’s ancient traditions and symbols.

The Bledisloe Cup is staying in Aotearoa 🖤 pic.twitter.com/bUTtyz7fwM

— All Blacks (@AllBlacks) September 27, 2025

Best Against the Best, Marquee Rivalries, and Rankings

Cricket and Rugby showcase the best international teams against one another much more frequently than football. The establishment of the UEFA Nations League in 2018 was a huge step in the right direction. However, even that event is unimportant (within its own sport, that is) compared to the Six Nations (even taking place annually) or the average English cricket summer. The World Cup and Euros qualifiers are the real snoozefest, where top teams will rarely have elite challengers. In the most recent WC Qs, for example, feature Netherlands vs. Poland and Italy vs. Norway as its most intriguing matchups – somewhat less interesting, within its own ecosystem, than the recent Italy and Georgia tour of South Africa.

How to solve that?

Firstly, for top teams to have an excuse to play against each other more often, their rivalries need to be the cream of the crop in international play. Few deem the Ashes overrated, and few question the merits of 10 five-day Test matches taking place across the four-year WTC cycle – it is by far the most important event for stakeholders in both regions.

Then, one thing that could support the expansion of international rivalries, especially if it’s done in the form of regular Test (friendlies, in football terms) matches, is if it contributes to the teams’ positions in the FIFA Rankings, which would, in turn, need to be more meaningful. That is something they, as of writing, are not, not in the least compared to those of World Rugby and ICC, with the latter even forming automatic qualifications for the World Cups.

Credits: Charles McQuillan/Getty Images

Test Match Sponsorships

In both rugby union and cricket, teams are allowed to feature shirt sponsors in matches not under the World Rugby and ICC umbrellas (e.g. here). In football, those would provide significant revenues to top and lowly teams alike.

There are good reasons for doing so in football for WC and Euro qualifiers (they are under UEFA/FIFA but not part of the main Finals tournaments themselves). However, teams are not doing that even in friendlies, which points out that the issue lies within footy culture, not UEFA/FIFA regulations.

Touring

In football, teams conduct what are now rare friendly games as one-off matchups. Instead, rugby and cricket have followed the Commonwealth tradition of touring. Tours would be a series of at least two matches, with each at best taking place in a different city/area of the home team. The touring side might also play games against club or selection teams. Here is an example.

That is how the mythical Ashes Test cricket series between England and Australia is organized. This autumn, England will travel down under for five games in five different Aussie megapolises, spanning more than a month and a half.

This provides a great chance for the touring side and the rivalry itself to connect and resonate with various local audiences, and would work very well for games between big Western European international sides.

Teodor Tsenov is an aspiring sportswriter and a HBO Bachelor of Arts graduate in International Sports Management at The Hague University of Applied Sciences in The Hague, the Netherlands. He is currently a Premaster in International Business Administration student at the Rotterdam School of Management (Erasmus University). Moreover, he has previously covered NFL, MLB, the New York Jets and the Miami Marlins for Franchise Sports (UK) and Overtime Heroics (USA). You can reach out to him on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Instagram, and via email tedogoshov@gmail.com.