The prospect of two rival European club tournaments next season grew on Thursday when the four RaboDirect unions and France announced the Heineken Cup would continue and the English and French clubs insisted their Rugby Champions Cup would go ahead regardless.
The five unions held a meeting in Dublin, one day after the Premiership and Top 14 clubs gathered in Paris, and agreed that the Heineken Cup would continue next season, no matter how many countries were involved, and that it would continue to be run by European Rugby Cup Ltd, the body the clubs want nothing more to do with.
The Rugby Football Union, whose chief executive, Ian Ritchie, has spent the past two months trying to bring the two sides together and broker an agreement, was not invited to the meeting, a move which will backfire on the other unions if it convinces Twickenham to side with its clubs and back the Rugby Champions Cup. "We are extremely surprised and disappointed not to be involved today," the RFU said. It added that it wanted to help bring about "a truly pan-European competition".
Although the five unions issued a joint statement which said "a 20-team European club competition" would take place next season no matter how many countries were involved, it was pointed out at the meeting in Dublin that its commercial viability would hinge on the French taking part.
The French clubs, along with Premiership Rugby and the French Rugby Federation, announced last year that they would be leaving ERC at the end of the season. The FFR, under pressure from the chairman of the International Rugby Board, Bernard Lapasset, has in the last few months had a rethink and its president, Pierre Camou, confident he could persuade four or five Top 14 clubs at least to abandon the Rugby Champions Cup.
Lapasset's objection to the Rugby Champions Cup is that it would be run on a day-to-day basis by clubs, who would make all the commercial decisions, such as television and sponsorship, with the unions, who would not be represented on the board, restricted to appointing referees and looking after disciplinary matters.
"A problem in all this is that the unions see it as a power struggle, which it is not," said Mark McCafferty, the chief executive of Premiership Rugby. "We work closely with the RFU to the benefit of the both of us and that is what we will do through the Rugby Champions Cup. They made a mistake not inviting the RFU to the meeting.
"We are meeting the French clubs again next week to sort out details about our cup, such as a logo, and they are fully committed to the Rugby Champions Cup. They have made it clear that they will not play in a European tournament that does not involve the English clubs and it may well be that there are two European tournaments next season."
Under the plan of the five unions the Amlin Challenge Cup would cease next season because of cost and the lack of teams for it, but without the French they would be left with the clubs in the Pro 12 to take part along with eight amateur teams from Italy and emerging countries in Europe.
"I cannot see it having much commercial appeal and the Pro 12 unions need to think carefully because they cannot afford to lose income," said McCafferty. "If we had no European rugby next season our income would neither go up nor down and this is a time when they should be looking at the bigger picture: if they are not careful, they will lose their leading players to clubs in other countries through their determination to retain ERC and their control of it. They should focus on growing the game and its income."
The four Welsh regions last month backed the Rugby Champions Cup but would have to defy their union to take part in it. "We hope they stay with us and the revenues for them would certainly be greater," said McCafferty, who revealed that Premiership Rugby will receive an increase in money from BT Sport next season regardless of whether the company had a European tournament to televise.
The five unions had not intended releasing their statement until Friday morning when they would have had an update from Camou. It is all down to the French, as it was in 1998 when the English clubs pulled out of the Heineken Cup, along with Cardiff and Swansea, but it was only six months ago that the FFR was making plans with its clubs for a new body to take over from ERC and be based in Lausanne. The danger for Camou, and the Pro 12 unions, is that even if he sabotages the Rugby Champions Cup by invoking French law which requires sporting teams to play only in competitions sanctioned by their governing body, the Top 14 sides may, out of solidarity with the Premiership, focus on their league and everyone would lose out.
