The England Sevens team in Las Vegas last season
Twickenham Stadium will stage the climax to this season’s expanded HSBC Sevens World Series.
The 2011 Emirates Airline London Sevens attracted a world record weekend attendance of 100,094 as the penultimate event in the global calendar.
Next year, London will stage the final leg over the weekend May 12-13 at the end of a nine-event series that includes a new tournament in Tokyo and new venues in Australia and South Africa.
RFU Chief Commercial Officer Sophie Goldschmidt said: “We are delighted to again be part of the HSBC Sevens World Series. With London now being the final stop this will only further enhance the excitement around the event.
“This year we saw a record number of fans attend the tournament and with the growth of sevens at all levels of the game we look forward to a fantastic event in 2012.”
Tickets to the 2012 Emirates Airline London Sevens are due to go on sale on September 1. Visit www.rfu.com/londonsevens for more details.
England’s HSBC Sevens World Series campaign kicks off in 100 days time on the Gold Coast in Australia (November 25-26), before heading for Dubai (December 2-3) and Port Elizabeth in South Africa (December 9-10).
Head coach Ben Ryan, whose side finished third in last season’s series, is due to name his squad for 2011-12 next week when they will assemble for their first training camp. He welcomed the expansion of the series and the inclusion of Tokyo, which will stage the seventh leg on March 31 and April 1 next year.
“Four years ago if you’d have said we’d be going to the Olympics, we’d have new tournaments in Tokyo and Las Vegas, full-time sevens players, TV coverage rocketing, 100,000 fans at Twickenham, you probably wouldn’t have believed it,” said Ryan. “But sevens is expanding at such an astonishing rate and a new tournament in one of the world’s greatest cities underlines that.”
IRB Chairman Bernard Lapasset said: “I am delighted that Tokyo is joining the international roster of tournaments that comprise the record-breaking HSBC Sevens World Series, which last season was watched in 147 countries in 16 languages. I am sure that the Japan Rugby Football Union will host a successful and popular event that Japan, Asia and the global Rugby family will be proud of.
“We very much look forward to working in partnership with the Japan Rugby Football Union to deliver an event that will benefit Asian Rugby and mark another significant milestone as we countdown to Sevens’ Olympic Games debut in Rio in 2016.”
HSBC Sevens World Series 2011/12
November 25-26: Australia
December 2-3: Dubai
December 9-10: South Africa
February 3-4: New Zealand
February 10-12: USA
March 23-25: Hong Kong
March 31-April 1: Japan
May 5-6: Scotland
May 12-13: England