The Premiership club owners meet on Monday to discuss fixture plans for next season amid increasing uncertainty, with Twickenham yesterday rejecting their revenue-raising plans for an extra six league fixtures and the league sponsor, Guinness, agreeing to extend its backing, but only for a year.
The 12 clubs are already losing more than £20m between them. That figure will increase next season because of the loss of the EDF Energy Cup, worth more than £600,000 a year to each club.
The owners debated a number of ideas in January to ease the impact of the economic downturn, rejecting suggestions to decrease or increase the size of the Premiership before settling on the idea of six extra league matches, which they felt would be worth £500,000 a year to each club. Under the agreement over the management of elite players agreed by the English clubs and Twickenham last year the Rugby Football Union's approval is needed for any change in the Premiership structure.
The governing body rejected the fixture expansion plan, but this week agreed to review it after a meeting with Premier Rugby, but its decision remained the same. The RFU feared the extra matches would maximise the clashes between league and England weekends, increase the risk of player burn-out and leave no slack in the event of postponements.
The two sides will arrange another meeting after the owners mull over their options on Monday. The RFU wants an Anglo-Welsh cup to continue in some form and the clubs have drawn up several proposals for a cup competition, including one involving only themselves. But television is keen only on a cross-border model.
The decision of Guinness, which started sponsoring the Premiership in 2005, to commit for only one more year was less than the clubs were hoping, raising the prospect of having to look for a new backer at a time when sport is taking a hit in the corporate market.
"We will look at alternative options but time is getting short," said Mark McCafferty, Premier Rugby's chief executive. "The RFU is keen on an Anglo-Welsh tournament and offered an extra November international but we want meaningful, guaranteed matches on the six weekends we're talking about and, if it is wrong to play extra league games, the answer can't be to arrange more internationals. We are managing the downturn by freezing the salary cap and reducing administrative costs but we need to increase revenue. No club is in danger of going to the wall but no one can predict what the next two years will hold."
Brian O'Driscoll, the Ireland captain, has been named player of the tournament for this season's Six Nations. O'Driscoll, Ireland's first Grand Slam captain since Karl Mullen in 1948, beat Italy skipper Sergio Parisse into second place, with Ireland lock Paul O'Connell third.
