The European Rugby Champions Cup is a top-tier annual rugby union tournament. The national clubs for the top six countries in Europe compete. However, this year, there are only five countries in this one. The European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR) organized the first competition in 1995. Since that time, Heineken has been the sponsor for all but four years. At this time, several providers are carrying the tournament in Europe. Those include BT Sport, BeIN Sports, FR 2, and others. In 2021, the tournament starts in December, with the final ending in May of 2022. If you are a fan of the sport or are checking it out for the first time, you can watch all of the action everywhere. Just make sure you connect to a VPN.
How to Watch the European Rugby Champions Cup with a VPN
You can watch this tournament by connecting to a VPN server in several countries. For this demonstration, we are using France:
- Sign up for ExpressVPN (includes a 30-day risk-free money-back guarantee)
- Download and install the ExpressVPN app on your dektop or mobile device. You can also use their MediaStreamer service to watch on game console or set top box.
- Open the app and connect to a server in France. Paris works just fine.
- Now you will need to sign up for Canalplus if you do not already have a subscription.
- Make sure you connect to a VPN server in France before trying to watch the tournament.
- If you have any questions or would like help, the ExpressVPN support team is available 24 hours a day.
What teams are competing in this tournament?
As you probably know, the tournament is very UK-heavy this year. Other countries not playing this year include Italy, South Africa, and Romania. As we mentioned, there are only representatives from five countries playing.
Here is a look at the countries and teams playing.
- England – 8 teams – Bath, Bristol Bears, Exeter Chiefs, Harlequins, Leicester Tigers, Northampton Saints, Sale Sharks, Wasps
- France – 8 teams – Bordeaux Bègles, Castres, Clermont, La Rochelle, Montpellier, Racing 92, Stade Français, Toulouse
- Ireland – 4 teams – Connacht, Leinster, Munster, Ulster
- Scotland – 1 team – Glasgow Warriors
- Wales – 3 teams – Cardiff Blues, Ospreys, Scarlets
This tournament will be interesting, when you consider the defending championship team is the French team, Toulouse. In the history of this tournament, this popular French club has the most wins of any team at five victories. If you look countrywise, though, England has the most tournament wins with ten, but France has nine.
More about this tournament
From 1995 to 2014, this cup was just called the Heineken Cup and an organization called European Rugby Cup ran it. However, due to disagreements, the EPCR took over, and Heineken returned as the sponsor for the 2018-2019 season. Currently, this tournament is called the Heineken Champions Cup, because there is also a challenger’s cup now.
The questions are, will defending champion Toulouse be able to take a sixth cup win? Will another team make it to take the final fixture? You’ll have to wait until May to find out. You can watch all the action in between now and then, though, with a VPN.