The 2009 World Cup 7's will take place from the 5th to 7th March, the International Rugby Board has announced.
The event in Dubai will have a women’s competition for the first time and the final 16 teams will have to qualify from 83 sides in the regional tournaments.
For the men's division, defending champions Fiji, New Zealand, England, Australia, France, Scotland, Argentina, South Africa and host union, the Arabian Gulf are the automatic qualifiers.
A further 15 will be filled via qualifiers. Samoa and Tonga that played really well in the 2006 / 2007 IRB 7's series will have to play in the qualifying rounds to win a ticket to the World Cup 7's tournaments after they failed to reach the quarterfinals in the 2005 tournament.
2009 World Cup 7s date set
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