Since 2000 only the winner of the tournament held in between the Rugby World Cups (every four years, as highlighted) is officially recognised "European Champions", although teams winning tournaments in other years are often unofficially also described as "European Champions".

This can cause some confusion, not least because the structure of the four-yearly tournament is invariably identical to the annual event.

The only major difference between the "official" European Championships and other tournaments is that in the latter, between 2001 and 2007, England and France tended not to send their full strength national squads to the competition - though until 2007 they still played as "England" or "France".

[3] The 2009 tournament acted as Europe's qualification tournament for the World Cup (all entrants sending full strength squads), after which the test match status problem was finally resolved.

From 2010 onwards it was announced [4] that the non-Championship tournaments would be known as the "European Trophy" and any Six Nations entrants would officially be "A" sides (though in 2010 Italy, as they had not qualified for the 2010 World Cup, entered their full strength squad).