The calendar of professional championship dates for the 2024-2025 season is now known. The National Rugby League (LNR) made it official this Friday. The Top 14 will start the weekend of September 7. Pro D2 will begin on August 30. The posters for each day will be revealed in July. After this Olympic year which led to the final being relocated to Marseille at the Vélodrome stadium, the elite of French rugby will return to the Stade de France for the final on June 28, 2025. The semi-finals will take place at the Groupama Stadium in Lyon on June 21. and June 22.
The calendar of dates for the professional championships for the 2024/2025 season was adopted by the LNR Steering Committee on March 25, then approved today by the FFR Steering Committee 🗓️🏉
Oppositions will be communicated at the beginning of July 2024 .More
… pic.twitter.com/ND16JtmpBq
— Ligue Nationale de Rugby (@LNRofficiel) March 29, 2024
For several years, Top 14 teams have had to deal with three double weekends per season. During this 2023-2024 financial year, it was during the France-Ireland, France-Italy and Wales-France matches of the VI Nations Tournament. Next year, there will only be two duplicates: the first during the November international window against Argentina (November 22) and the second on the third day of the VI Nations Tournament in Italy ( February 23). This will allow teams made up of several international players to be able to keep them for one more week. But this good news could be short-lived, since World Rugby has announced the creation of a new competition, the Nations Cup which will begin in July 2026. This will inevitably make the international calendar even more dense.