The Welsh Rugby Union will present a revised participation agreement to its four regions on Monday but it will not be signed if it binds the quartet to the current Heineken Cup organisers.
The regions failed to meet a 31 December deadline to extend the participation agreement, which started in 2009, until 2019, saying that the WRU's refusal last year to negotiate a revision of some of its terms meant they would face bankruptcy if they committed to it for another five years.
The regions gave the WRU until the end of this month to agree to a replacement for the Heineken Cup, the Rugby Champions Cup, which would be run by the Six Nations committee rather than European Rugby Cup Ltd, or they would join Premiership Rugby in forming an Anglo-Welsh league.
The WRU stated earlier in the week that it remained committed to ERC and is trying to persuade the French Rugby Federation not to abandon a five nations Heineken Cup – England would be excluded – that was agreed in November.
When the six nations that take part in the Heineken Cup met in Dublin last month, in a meeting brokered by the mediator hired by ERC, Graeme Mew, to find a way of resolving the dispute, the chairman of the French Rugby Federation, Pierre Camou, walked out after his proposal that the tournament be run by Fira, the organisation made up of the smaller unions in Europe, was rejected.
Camou was persuaded to return but the WRU then left the meeting after Mew revealed that he had spoken to representatives of Regional Rugby Wales the previous day to canvass their views as they were not going to be in Dublin. The union's insistence that it alone negotiates on behalf of Wales in Europe is one of the reasons the regions have entered into an agreement with Premiership Rugby.
The two groups will not play in a European tournament without each other, which means that, if the five-nation Heineken Cup goes ahead next season, the WRU will need to find new teams, while the French clubs have said they will not take part in it without the English.
"We have the opportunity to play in a European competition which will give us an extra £1m a year for three years," said Peter Thomas, chairman of Cardiff Blues. "It gives us a chance to keep the likes of Sam Warburton and Leigh Halfpenny while Ireland and Scotland will also receive more money. Their unions should be urging the WRU not to let this go that it makes sense, and the invitation is there for France and Italy to join as well."
Informal talks over Europe are continuing but a further face-to-face meeting of the stakeholders has not been arranged. The Welsh and Irish unions remain opposed to clubs running the commercial side of a European tournament and, if that does not change this month, the regions and the Premiership clubs will press ahead with an Anglo-Welsh league, having taken legal advice.
The regions are confident enough about their position to have made firm contract offers to some of their international players who are out of contract at the end of the season. "We want to remain within the WRU but, if it [takes] going into another carriage to save ourselves, we will do that," said Thomas. "We want to sign an agreement with the WRU that reflects today's conditions, not those in 2009, but we also have a Plan B."
