Premiership plans for expansion go on hold

Plans by Premiership Rugby to expand the top-flight to 14 teams and impose a moratorium on promotion and relegation from 2016 are in doubt.
The Rugby Paper can reveal Championship clubs have yet to be properly consulted over the matter.
With domestic leagues kicking-off on September 5 and only one RFU council meeting scheduled before then, on September 4, Championship clubs have received no formal proposals from PRL or the RFU over how such radical changes would be managed.
Any amendment to the current one-up, one-down system of promotion and relegation requires approval before the season starts or the status-quo will apply, meaning whoever finishes bottom of next season’s Premiership will be relegated.
Championship chairman Geoff Irvine told TRP: “There will be no change to the playing conditions next year. How will you get it through the regulations between now and September 5 when there’s not a council meeting until September 4?
“Nothing will change by September 5, the Championship will be playing under the same conditions as it did last year.
“Nothing is happening with promotion and relegation and the status is completely quo; whoever finishes bottom of the Premiership next season will be relegated.
“You can’t change the playing conditions once the competition has started and there’s no time to get everything through governance before September 5.”
Premiership Rugby remain in talks with the RFU over their expansion plans as part of an overall package for a new heads of agreement in 2016.
However, TRP understands some Premiership clubs have developed cold feet over the issue and are questioning why proceeds from any new deal, plus existing central TV and sponsorship deals, should be divided 14 ways instead of 12.
There are also legitimate concerns among clubs that scrapping relegation would dilute the intensity of England‘s top-flight competition, while opportunities for ambitious clubs below the Premiership to emerge would be severely curtailed.
Ian Connell, chairman of Cornish Pirates, told TRP: “I don’t like the concept of no promotion and relegation. I’ve no resistance to the Premiership moving to 14, but the devil is in the detail and the mechanism for getting there must be scrutinised.
“I’m not expecting changes for 2015-16 and there’s been no inkling that the RFU are willing to sign up to what the Premiership want before the season starts. PRL have to put a solution to us and then go through the RFU, but we have had no proposals.”
A Premiership Rugby spokesman said: “We’re still talking to the RFU and I wouldn’t rule anything in or out as we stand. We’ve got to keep talking to the stakeholders to find a way forward.”
NEALE HARVEY