The Rugby Football Union chief executive, Ian Ritchie, is trying to restart negotiations over the future of a European club tournament after weeks of prevarication by the RaboDirect Pro12 unions.

Three meetings scheduled for this month have been postponed because the unions, who last month agreed to the demands of the French and English clubs that qualification for an elite European club tournament should be based on merit and that the proceeds should be split equally between the three leagues involved, are reluctant to address the issue of governance.

The clubs, who last year gave notice that they would be pulling out of the Heineken Cup, which is organised by European Rugby Cup Ltd, at the end of the season, are organising a replacement tournament, the Rugby Champions Cup, and insist it will be run by clubs.

The French Rugby Federation has been obstructive towards the new tournament, saying among other things that it would flout French law, and the RaboDirect unions have been waiting to see whether the Top 14 clubs will be persuaded to commit to ERC. That appears unlikely. The Ligue Nationale de Rugby insists that the Top 14 clubs would just play league rugby if the FFR and the other unions prevented the Rugby Champions Cup from taking place and that is also the stance of Premiership Rugby.

The Rabo unions have complained that they have not seen details of the television deal secured by Premiership Rugby with BT Sport but it is understood that the RFU has. The clubs maintain that the contract will boost income by 50%, leaving all six countries better off. The clubs have told the Rabo unions they would be given their money first if the Rugby Champions Cup goes ahead. If there were a shortfall in income, they would receive the amount promised in full, with the French and English clubs absorbing any deficit.

But that is conditional on the unions agreeing that the tournament, unlike ERC, would be run by the clubs, with governing bodies not represented on the board. Ritchie, who is playing the role of mediator because the RFU receives no income from the Heineken Cup, is aware that the longer the delay goes on, the more the prospect of a European club tournament next season will diminish.

The four Welsh regions, who last month pledged their support for the Rugby Champions Cup, are meeting this week to discuss the implications of the impasse for them in a month when the Wales and Lions centre Jonathan Davies signed for Clermont Auvergne. His region, the Scarlets, offered him a new contract worth £300,000 a year, on condition they were involved in a European club tournament next season. When Clermont pushed him to make a decision, he opted for certainty.

It is understood that the regions are reopening negotiations with other leading players who are coming out of contract, including Leigh Halfpenny, Sam Warburton, Alun Wyn Jones and Adam Jones, all of whom will command substantial pay increases after their exploits with the Lions in the summer. They want to sign them by the beginning of next month, even though Europe's future will not have been decided by then.

Halfpenny and Warburton are understood to be ready to sign new deals with Cardiff Blues and the regions hope that by securing the future of national squad players beyond the 2015 World Cup they will put the Welsh Rugby Union under pressure to ensure that there is a European club competition next season.

"This is a key moment," said one club official. "At the moment, it could go either way but the longer there is a delay, the greater the chance of the three Celtic unions and Italy suffering a big drop in revenue next season because there will be no Europe. That is why Ian Ritchie is desperately trying to get everyone around the table again talking about the big sticking point, governance.

"The reality is that 30 of the 38 teams who take part in the Heineken and Amlin Challenge cups have committed to the Rugby Champions Cup. No one is making any threats about breaking way or challenging the regulations of the International Rugby Board. It is just a case of the Rugby Champions Cup or nothing as far as European rugby is concerned."