LEADING OFFICERS in the English Rugby Football Union are plotting to break up the Five Nations Championship in the next three years. Both England and France, it seems, will withdraw from international rugby's oldest tournament after 1999 and instead take part in an annual Test series known as the Super Five together with New, Zealand, Australia and South Africa.
A powerful clique within the RFU has held a series of clandestine meetings to develop a long-term plan to maximise England's revenue from international rugby and to raise England's competitive standards.
Traditional Five Nations fixtures involving Wales, Scotland and Ireland are regarded as detrimental to England's best interests on both the commercial and competitive fronts even though they remain popular with British and Irish supporters.
The RFU reform group, which has demanded the resignation of the RFU secretary Tony Hallett, is alarmed about the growing threat to the Five Nations competition which came perilously close to disintegrating earlier this season. Senior members of the group which include Fran Cotton, the Lions manager, fear that England's international future is rapidly passing into the hands of BSkyB which they claim has plans in the pipeline to introduce pay-per-view at £12 per household for major international matches.
The RFU wishes to destroy the burgeoning power of Rugby World Cup Ltd by participating in a World Super Five which would effectively become rugby's premier international competition by the start of the new millennium.
Rupert Murdoch's Sky Television organisation already has a 10-year agreement with the southern hemispheres Big Three as well as £87.5m five-year deal with England: only France among rugby's super powers continues to operate outside Sky's global network.
The reform group which has sent out a manifesto to 2,000 English clubs, wants to bring pressure to bear on the RFU to re-establish a close working relationship with the Welsh, Scottish and Irish Unions which have negotiated separate TV arrangements for the Five Nations tournament. There is concern that Cliff Brittle, the elected chairman of the RFU executive committee, has been marginalised in the day-to-day running of the union by the clique that is plotting to set up a World Super Five.
John Richardson the RFU president, has denied the existence of an RFU threat to the Five Nations but Richardson is understood not to be privy to the hidden agenda of some of his RFU colleagues.
The capacity of the reform group to reorientate Twickenham's Five Nations strategy will be severely limited unless Cotton can build up a group of enough influential members to go on the counter-attack.
The vexed question of BSkyB's pay-per-view option could surface at today's scheduled meeting of the RFU committee.
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