Six Nations and Rugby Championship bosses will meet in London next month to revive the World Nations Championship in a fresh bid to overhaul rugby’s global calendar.

Three years after the concept was killed off by promotion and relegation fears, the chief executives of rugby’s 10 most powerful national unions are close to agreeing the structure of a global championship to be held every two years from 2024.

“If we can work together for an outcome that produces a global champion every two years, engages our fan bases more than we do now and throughout the year, and provides a pathway for rugby’s emerging nations to improve and progress, then we can be in a much better position to grow our game and take it to the next level,” SANZAAR boss Brendan Morris told the Herald.

A global champion would be crowned every two years in four, skipping World Cup and British and Irish Lions years.

Two 12-team divisions of established and emerging nations are still on the cards, with the Six Nations and Rugby Championship unions in the top division, plus two more southern hemisphere countries, such as Fiji and Japan.

The main change to the current calendar would be that every Test would be played for competition points, including the Six Nations, the Rugby Championship and the six extra Tests played in the July and November touring windows.

The Six Nations and Rugby Championship would stay as competitions in their own rights but also contribute to the overall ladder. Then, instead of an England team touring Australia for a three-Test series or an Ireland team touring New Zealand, the Wallabies, All Blacks, Springboks and Pumas would host three different countries each July. If Fiji and Japan join the Rugby Championship in 2024, they would also host inbound Tests in that period.

In November, the southern hemisphere nations would head north for the final three rounds of the championship, potentially with a fourth week added on to crown a global champion in a blockbuster final Test.

The pitch faces all of the same challenges of the failed 2019 model, including convincing weaker nations to agree to a promotion and relegation mechanism between the top and emerging divisions. Player-welfare concerns will come to the fore again, while there could also be wariness from northern hemisphere club competitions if their seasons butt up against any final championship round.