THE 2026 Super League Grand Final will be played a week earlier.

Instead of being played on the second Saturday in October (which would have been 10th October, 2026), the 2026 showpiece event will take place on Saturday 1st October (the first Saturday in October).

The Grand Final will, of course, still be held at Old Trafford, but managing director of Rugby League Commercial, Rhodri Jones, has explained the decision to move the final to the week before.

“The headline is the FIFA calendar for international windows has changed from 2027 onwards,” Jones explained.

“The result is the Grand Final is a week earlier, so instead of it being on the 10th of October – the second Saturday in October – it’s now on the 1st of October – the first Saturday in October – and that’s going to be the same now between certainly from 27 through to 2030.

“So the Super League Grand Final will take place on the 3rd of October in 2026.

“It’s the same weekend as the NRL Grand final, which I don’t believe has happened previously.

“And it’s been a change that we’ve known about for a couple of years, so that we knew that the FIFA calendar was changing, so we did know this was coming, and again, like I said, Old Trafford will host the Grand Final on the first Saturday of October.

“For the World Cup, the first game is on the 17th of October, and the tournament expectation is that teams are on the ground in Australia seven days before, so that means the 10th of October, for the main team, which is obviously a week after the Grand Final.”