England's leading clubs will not follow the French in boycotting next season's Heineken European Cup but will next week call for the number of Premiership sides in the tournament to be increased.
The organisers of the cup meet next week to decide the format of next season's tournament. The absence of the French clubs would reduce television revenue by some £5 million, and Premier Rugby believes a greater English presence would do more to soften the shortfall than inviting sides like Bucharest to make up the numbers.
The 14 French clubs which make up the Ligue Nationale de Rugby (LNR) met the president of the French Rugby Federation, Bernard Lapasset, yesterday to discuss how the boycott could be averted. Lapasset will fly to London today for a meeting with leading Rugby Football Union officials, armed with a message from LNR that the French clubs will remain in the fold only if Twickenham agrees at next week's meeting of ERC Ltd that clubs should be given greater shares and voting rights.
The RFU has so far refused to budge on the issue while the other unions on ERC have accepted a move which would give French, English and Italian clubs a greater say in how the European Cup and the European Challenge Cup were run commercially.
There is a perception on the ERC board that the French clubs are looking for a face-saving way to end their boycott threat, having failed to secure a television deal for their league as lucrative as they had envisaged last January when they announced they were pulling out of the European Cup.
The clubs look as if they will be £5 million to £6 million out of pocket next season, a sum they would make up if they remained in Europe, but the RFU is highly unlikely to shift its position, especially as its talks with Premier Rugby over a new agreement covering the management of elite players have stalled.
ERChas released the official list of additional players registered for the knock-out stages of the European Cup, starting with next weekend's four quarter-finals. Munster's squad has been bolstered by Brian Carney, hooker Denis Fogarty and secondrow Donnacha Ryan while Leinster plumped for Jonathan Sexton, Ireland under-20 scrumhalf Paul O'Donohue and prop Fosi Pala'amo.
Northampton have added Derry-born Seamus Mallon, who returns to Ulster in the summer, while Stade Francais have named Argentinian prop Juan Gomez as one of their three players. Gomez, a prop, was being pursued by Leinster and is believed to have signed a heads of agreement deal that would see him agree a two-year contract during the summer.
ADDITIONAL PLAYERS
Biarritz Olympique: Gaston De Robertis, Thibault Duvallet, Denis Lison .
Leicester Tigers:Matthew Smith.
Leinster: Fosi Pala'amo, Paul O'Donoghue, Jonathan Sexton.
Llanelli Scarlets:No additional players.
London Wasps:Chris Bishay, Ayoola Erinle.
Munster: Brian Carney, Denis Fogarty, Donnacha Ryan.
Northampton:John Brooks, Christian Labit, Seamus Mallon.
Stade Francais: Frans Viljoen, Juan Gomez.
CONNACHT SQUAD:G Duffy, A Farley, A Flavin, J Fogarty, D Gannon, J Hearty, R Hogan, C Keane, S Knoop, M Lacey, M McHugh, C McPhillips, J Muldoon, R Ofisa, C Rigney, D Riordan, D Slemen, M Swift, P Warwick, B Wilkinson, G Williams, D Yapp.
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