As preparations for Rugby World Cup 2027 gather pace, one theme is already proving essential: collaboration. Earlier this month, Yurley Benítez, Account Services & Operations Manager at Wiz-Team, joined World Rugby and fellow delivery partners in Sydney for the Rugby World Cup 2027 Partner Workshop. The event brought together key stakeholders to align on operational priorities, share expertise and gain first-hand insight into tournament planning across venues, fan experiences and event operations.
For Wiz-Team, the workshop was an opportunity to strengthen a partnership built on trust, operational expertise and a shared commitment to delivering an exceptional tournament experience. Through venue visits, planning sessions and collaborative discussions, participants explored how people, processes and technology come together to support a world-class event. As the official provider of the Games Management System for Rugby World Cup 2027, Wiz-Team will play a key role in connecting critical functions, from accreditation and workforce management to access control and stakeholder coordination.
In the interview below, Yurley shares her key takeaways from Sydney and explains how early collaboration, trusted partnerships and operational expertise are helping shape the road to Rugby World Cup 2027.
You attended the Rugby World Cup 2027 Partner Workshop in Sydney. What were your biggest takeaways from the discussions with World Rugby and fellow partners?
The biggest takeaway for me was the importance of collaboration. It’s not just about delivering individual projects or solutions; it’s about making sure that all the different partners and operational teams are aligned around the same objective and working towards one tournament experience.
How did the workshop reinforce the importance of having a trusted technology and operational partner supporting a tournament of this scale?
that technology needs to be more than just a system sitting in the background. It needs to support the people delivering the tournament by understanding the real needs of each operational area. Having a trusted partner who understands both the technology and the operational – Like Wiz-Team – reality is key to delivering such an event.
Wiz-Team will provide the Games Management System for Rugby World Cup 2027. From what you saw and heard, how will our platform help World Rugby deliver consistent operations across multiple venues and stakeholder groups?
For a tournament like RWC2027, you have accreditation, workforce, volunteers, access control, media, guests and tournament staff, all with different requirements but also a lot of interaction between them – each FA talks to each other. Having that information and those processes managed within one ecosystem creates a much more consistent way of working. It gives different stakeholder groups access to the information and functionality they need, while also giving the tournament team greater visibility and control.
The programme included visits to stadiums and fan festival locations. What operational challenges and opportunities became more tangible once you experienced the venues first-hand?
This allowed us to see the event out of desktop perspective to a more tangible environment and give us the vision of what is needed at the operational level, where we can see how things become more tangible from months of planning and discussion.
The opportunity for these venue visits is that we can identify challenges before they become issues.
What impressed you most about World Rugby’s approach to planning Rugby World Cup 2027, and how does Wiz-Team contribute to that vision?
The level of planning and dedication on creating a consistent tournament experience in all fronts. There is a huge amount of coordination to bring venues together, cities, partners and different stakeholders, and WR is already on top of it. Wiz-Team is providing the technology that help connects many of those pieces. Our role is to make complex processes more manageable and effective.
Looking ahead, what makes you most excited about the journey towards Rugby World Cup 2027 and the role Wiz-Team will play in its success?
What excited me the most is the opportunity to be already in Australia, at this stage (still 1 year to go) which mean there is a lot of room to shape how the tournament will operate. For Wiz-Team, it’s exciting to bring together technology, operational expertise and experience from other world-class events and apply that to RWC27.
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