Llanelli refuse to pay Euro fine

Llanelli will today tell European Rugby Cup Ltd that they will not pay the £10,000 fine imposed last month for the club's part in the violence which marred last month's European Cup encounter in Pau.

The board which runs Llanelli was incorporated yesterday after a successful share offer raised £512,000 and at its first meeting, it decided to challenge the fine.

The club has taken legal advice and is arguing that the ERC acted outside its jurisdiction in imposing the fine on both clubs because the clause under which they were both punished was taken from the International Rugby Board's handbook and is not included in the ERC's articles of association.

Llanelli have asked the Welsh Rugby Union to take up their case. The fine was imposed last week and both clubs were given 21 days in which to pay.

Pontypridd and Brive had been fined £15,000 each the previous week following a brawl in the first meeting between the clubs in France last month. Pontypridd have said they will pay, but they have asked the ERC to reduce the fine to £10,000. Their manager Eddie Jones said: "The tournament director Roger Pickering has been quoted as saying that the violence in Pau was worse than that in Brive, so we want to know why we have been fined more for less." Jones said that the Pontypridd number eight Dale McIntosh would be legally represented in Dublin next week when he answers a charge of bringing the game into disrepute laid by the ERC after he gave the Brive crowd the thumbs-up as he left the field having been sent off for fighting. "We have written to the ERC warning them that if a further ban is imposed on Dale on top of the 30 days he got for defending himself after being set upon by four Brive players, we will take the matter further," said Jones. "Dale was stupid to do what he did, but given the precedents in the first two years of the Heineken Cup, there is no way he brought the game into disrepute. Any ban would be a restraint of trade and we would vigorously oppose it."

Meanwhile, the English RFU has announced a record £10 millions agreement with Nike, the sports kit manufacturers, which installs them as official suppliers of the England squad up to the end of the 2003 World Cup. Last year, Fran Cotton, who is now a vice chairman of the RFU's national playing committee, sold his England franchise interest in his company Cotton Traders to Nike for an estimated £3 million. The latest deal brings the aggregate value of the RFU's sponsorship agreements since the start of the summer to £30 million. Members of the England squad will carry out paid promotional work on behalf of Nike whose nationwide billboard adverts often feature leading players with controversial captions.

Zinzan Brooke, the New Zealand back row forward, may not make his debut for his new employers Harlequins until next season, even though his contract with Auckland has come to an end. "I love my rugby and I thrive in the All Blacks environment," he admitted yesterday after confirming his availability for New Zealand's autumn tour of Britain which includes two tests against England. Brooke has won 54 caps to date. He is to hold a press conference tomorrow to announce when he will move.

Newcastle are angry with Cliff Brittle, chairman of the RFU management board, over a 28-day suspension imposed on their captain Dean Ryan as a result of Brittle's intervention.

Rob Andrew, Newcastle's director of rugby, will lodge an appeal against the ban which Ryan received for punching Bath flanker Nathan Thomas in a premiership match at the Recreation Ground on August 23rd.

Brittle, who watched the game live on Sky television, instructed the RFU's disciplinary board to investigate the incident. At the time, Ryan was given merely a yellow card for his assault, whereas Thomas was sent off allegedly for stamping Newcastle's Tim Stimpson and subsequently received a 90-day suspension.

Newcastle believe Ryan's offence was properly dealt with during the game by the Liverpool referee Steve Lander. While there has been some feeling in Ireland that the top clubs in the AIL could compete just as well as the provinces in the European Cup, the president of the French Rugby Federation, Bernard Lapasset, has made a reverse proposal - that France should be represented in future by the provinces, instead of by the clubs. This suggestion, however, has been totally rejected by the president of defending champions, Brive, Pierre Dauzier. "The clubs are the body and soul of rugby in France," said Dauzier. "The provinces playing in Europe would be an absurdity, a nonsense. I will fight Monsieur Lapasset totally on the issue, not only on behalf of Brive, but all our clubs."