Within sports and games played at the international competitive level, the Rest of the World refers to a team of players from many countries of origin that compete against a single individual or a team from a single group, such as a club or country.

Overview

As a Rest of the World team usually has little experience in playing together or working as a team, their ability is not usually considered indicative of their actual abilities, either individually or as members of their usual teams, and as such, games played against the rest of the world are not normally considered to show the true talent of either the rest of the world or the team competing against them. As a consequence, Rest of the World matches are usually played as one-off events either as friendly games or for a non-competitive special purpose, such as

international aid In international relations, aid (also known as international aid, overseas aid, foreign aid, economic aid or foreign assistance) is – from the perspective of governments – a voluntary transfer of resources from one country to another. A ...

or commemoration. However, some such events can produce spectacular and intense games, such as the chess game between

Garry Kasparov Garry Kimovich Kasparov (born 13 April 1963) is a Russian chess grandmaster, former World Chess Champion, writer, political activist and commentator. His peak rating of 2851, achieved in 1999, was the highest recorded until being surpassed by ...

and the Rest of the World in 1999. The Russia (USSR) vs Rest of the World chess matches were also tightly contested.

Examples

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as just rugby league and sometimes football, footy, rugby or league, is a full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular field measuring 68 metres (75 yards) wide and 112 ...

, the

Other Nationalities The Other Nationalities rugby league team are a rugby league representative team that usually consists of non-English players. They have also played under the name The Exiles and more recently Combined Nations All Stars. They competed in the first ...

team played from 1904 to 1975. In

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In it ...

, the

British and Irish Lions The British & Irish Lions is a rugby union team selected from players eligible for the national teams of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. The Lions are a test side and most often select players who have already played for their national ...

faced the

Rest of the World XV British Lions v The Rest was a 1986 rugby union match that saw the British Lions play against ' The Rest' to celebrate the centenary of the International Rugby Football Board. The Rest consisted of players from Australia, France, New Zealand and ...

in 1986. In basketball, the NBA Rising Stars Challenge faces a Team USA versus a Team World since 2015.

Cricket

Noted examples of Rest of the World teams in

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by st ...

included those organised to tour England in 1970 and Australia in 1971-2 in place of planned tours from

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring coun ...

abandoned because of political opposition due to the

apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...

policy. Although the matches in 1970 were declared at the time to have official

Test cricket Test cricket is a form of first-class cricket played at international level between teams representing full member countries of the International Cricket Council (ICC). A match consists of four innings (two per team) and is scheduled to last f ...

status, this was subsequently withdrawn. A World XI also played against Australia in the

2005 ICC Super Series The ICC Super Series 2005 was a cricket series held in Australia during October 2005, organised by the International Cricket Council (ICC). It was played between Australia, the world's top-ranked side at the time, and a World XI team of players ...

. The first class match in that series retains Test match status, a move which was and is controversial with some cricket statisticians such as

Bill Frindall William Howard Frindall, (3 March 1939 – 29 January 2009) was an English cricket scorer and statistician, who was familiar to cricket followers as a member of the Test Match Special commentary team on BBC radio. He was nicknamed the Bearded ...

. However the status is unlikely to be withdrawn in part because of the effect on noted cricket records; for instance without the wickets taken in this match, Muthiah Muralitharan would fall slightly short of 800 career test wickets. A world XI also competed in unofficial

World Series Cricket World Series Cricket (WSC) was a commercial professional cricket competition staged between 1977 and 1979 which was organised by Kerry Packer and his Australian television network, Nine Network. WSC ran in commercial competition to establish ...

in 1977-9, and a "Rest of the World XI" contested two short tournaments in England dubbed the "World Cricket Cup" in 1966 and 1967, struggling in the first, but emerging victorious in the second.

Association football

The first example of a Rest of the World team in

football (soccer) Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

occurred on 23rd October 1963, when a Rest of the World side played against England at

Wembley stadium Wembley Stadium (branded as Wembley Stadium connected by EE for sponsorship reasons) is a football stadium in Wembley, London. It opened in 2007 on the site of the Wembley Stadium (1923), original Wembley Stadium, which was demolished from 200 ...

in an occasion to mark a centenary celebration of the sport. The game was marked by strong performances by

Jimmy Greaves James Peter Greaves (20 February 1940 – 19 September 2021) was an English professional footballer who played as a forward. Greaves is regarded as one of England’s best ever players. He is England's fifth-highest international goalscorer ...

Lev Yashin Lev Ivanovich Yashin (russian: Лев Иванович Яшин; 22 October 1929 – 20 March 1990), nicknamed the "Black Spider" or the "Black Panther", was a Soviet professional footballer regarded by many as the greatest goalkeeper in the h ...

Denis Law Denis Law (born 24 February 1940) is a Scottish former footballer who played as a forward. His career as a football player began at Second Division Huddersfield Town in 1956. After four years at Huddersfield, he was signed by Manchester City ...

(who played for the Rest of the World), and

Luis Eyzaguirre Luis Armando Eyzaguirre Silva (born 22 June 1939), also known as Fifo, is a former Chilean football player. He played right back in the Universidad de Chile football team known as the ''Ballet Azul'', with which he won five national championship ...

(which earned him the nickname "Fifo," after

FIFA FIFA (; stands for ''Fédération Internationale de Football Association'' (French), meaning International Association Football Federation ) is the international governing body of association football, beach football and futsal. It was found ...

). A similar event occurred on 8th August 1987 when such a side contested a match, also at Wembley, against a Football League XI to commemorate the centenary of the

English football league The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, the league is the oldest such competition in the world. It was the top-level football league in Engla ...

. This comprised the last high-profile occasion on which

Diego Maradona Diego Armando Maradona (; 30 October 196025 November 2020) was an Argentine professional football player and manager. Widely regarded as one of the greatest players in the history of the sport, he was one of the two joint winners of the F ...

played on English soil. Although the game was sparsely attended, the hostile reception of Maradona, just over a year after the " Hand of God" incident, was notable.

Gary Lineker Gary Winston Lineker (; born 30 November 1960) is an English former professional footballer and current sports broadcaster. He is regarded as having been one of the greatest English strikers. His media career began with the BBC, where he has ...

, who at the time was playing for

FC Barcelona Futbol Club Barcelona (), commonly referred to as Barcelona and colloquially known as Barça (), is a professional football club based in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, that competes in La Liga, the top flight of Spanish football. Found ...

, played alongside Maradona for the Rest of the World.

Golf

Two events in

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...

, one currently active and the other defunct, involve teams officially labeled "International" that are effectively "rest of the world" teams. The

Presidents Cup The Presidents Cup is a series of men's golf matches between a team representing the United States and an International Team representing the rest of the world minus Europe. Europe competes against the United States in a similar but considerably ...

in men's golf, held in odd-numbered years, features competition between a

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

team and an "International" team made up of non-European players (

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

ans compete against the US in even-numbered years in the

Ryder Cup The Ryder Cup is a biennial men's golf competition between teams from Europe and the United States. The competition is contested every two years with the venue alternating between courses in the United States and Europe. The Ryder Cup is named af ...

). The now-defunct

Lexus Cup The Lexus Cup was an annual golf tournament played between 2005 and 2008 for professional women golfers contested by a team representing Asia and an international team representing the rest of the world. It was sanctioned by the LPGA Tour,

in women's golf was an annual competition that matched an

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...

team against an "International" team drawn from all other nationalities.

Non-sporting usage

Outside sports and games, Rest of World (RoW) is also a term used to distinguish an unspecified but inclusive group of nations from one or more dominant players in the comparative analysis of markets, economies, military capabilities, and so forth, especially in graphs or charts to show the numbers representing the other countries. The

Federation of American Scientists The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) is an American nonprofit global policy think tank with the stated intent of using science and scientific analysis to attempt to make the world more secure. FAS was founded in 1946 by scientists who w ...

, for instance, provides a list of RoW weapons systems, meaning systems belonging to nations other than the United States. On 22 November 2022, the

European Broadcasting Union The European Broadcasting Union (EBU; french: Union européenne de radio-télévision, links=no, UER) is an alliance of public service media organisations whose countries are within the European Broadcasting Area or who are members of the C ...

announced that, starting from , the

Eurovision Song Contest The Eurovision Song Contest (), sometimes abbreviated to ESC and often known simply as Eurovision, is an international songwriting competition organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), featuring participants representing pr ...

would include a televote from non-participating countries for the first time. Viewers from non-participating countries would also be able to vote in all shows, with their votes being aggregated and presented as one individual set of points under "Rest of the World".

References

Figures of speech Terminology used in multiple sports {{game-stub