England’s Premiership Rugby teams could miss out on playing European Rugby next year following the latest developments in Northern Hemisphere rugby row that has gone on for over a year.
Premiership Rugby bosses will meet this week to try and find a solution after French teams back tracked and pulled out of the proposes Rugby Champions Cup.
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French clubs and English clubs were not happy with the way Europe’s teams qualified for the Heineken Cup and the Challenge Cup as well as the way the money was distributed.
England’s Premiership Rugby and France’s Ligue Nationale de Rugby (LNR) agreed to form the Rugby Champions Cup and invited other nations to join them.
Last month Welsh clubs said that they would back the breakaway tournament but then last Thursday the LNR announced that French clubs would be pulling out and supporting a 20-team event backed by Irish, Scottish, Welsh, French and Italian unions under the auspices of European Rugby Cup instead.
However they said that would only do this for one season and it remains to be seen how many French teams would be joining the 20 team tournament.
England’s Premiership Rugby (PR) have consistently said that their clubs will not play in ERC run tournament from next season and gave two year’s notice of this 18 months ago.
Premiership Rugby have presold the rights to their clubs involvement in European Rugby so they have a financial backer for the tournament but it now appears that they will have no one to play against.
Being left out of European Rugby now appears to be a real possibility for English Rugby clubs although Press Association Sport understands that detailed discussions on all aspects of the European debate will feature on this week’s agenda.
“That’s the most likely outcome,” Premiership Rugby’s chief executive Mark McCafferty told the Sunday Telegraph, when asked if English clubs would not play in Europe next season.
“It’s the clubs’ call on that, but from my perspective I can’t see at the moment how it would be feasible for us to be in 2014-15 European competitions, if the unions, as they have said, are going to run a 20-team competition through ERC.
“We knew the French union was putting the French clubs under a lot of pressure.
“Those clubs are on a very tight timetable with regards to the signing of their new agreement with the French union and for their own domestic TV rights deal. But we were not pleased with the way it came out all of a sudden.
“I think the French clubs will say they won’t play and the French union will tell six of them they have to play in this 20-team competition.”
McCafferty said that if English clubs are left out of Europe an expanded Aviva Premiership format could be considered.
In addition, it has been learnt that representatives from South Africa have made tentative contact with McCafferty about them potentially joining English clubs in a tournament.