TWICKENHAM’S SEARCH for the chief executive it desperately needs after the most torrid period in the RFU’s 140-year history has been hit by the fallout from the leak last week of three reviews into the World Cup campaign in New Zealand.

The RFU has a shortlist of three for the post, which carries a salary of more than €350,000 a year but two of the candidates are having second thoughts after the negative publicity from the leaking of the reviews compiled by the union, Premiership Rugby and the Rugby Players’ Association, which was based on statements or interviews with 90 per cent of the 30-strong squad.

The pair expressed their revulsion at the unauthorised release of information that was supplied on the understanding it would not be released into the public domain. They are asking themselves whether they want to be part of an organisation that seems to have a systemic leaking culture. The RFU wants to make the appointment on December 16th, more than six months after John Steele was sacked following a dispute with non-executive directors about the process for appointing a performance director who would oversee the senior England team.

Even though the new chief executive would not be able to start until well into the new year, the hope has been that he would have an input into key appointments and decisions that have to be made, not least who will succeed Martin Johnson as the England team manager on a permanent basis and a review of all the departments at Twickenham.

“You have to ask whether there is a sport in this country that is run more badly,” said the politician and former England wing Derek Wyatt. “The need for a chief executive is great, yet even if they found one tomorrow he would not be able to start work for between three and six months. Sponsors are making threats and I cannot see why the RFU has not asked Francis Baron (the former chief executive) to come back and steady things.”

Following the revelation in the Observer yesterday that the RFU was considering paying its executive directors bonuses after a record financial year, Wyatt said: “It would be scandalous after all that has happened. No one should be given bonuses and if they were I am sure clubs would be demanding resignations.”

The RFU has two key meetings this week. The board of directors meets on Wednesday to discuss recommendations from the professional game board about Johnson’s successor as England team manager and whether an interim management should be installed because the start of the Six Nations is little more than two months away.

Two days later the union’s council will consider a report from the legal firm Slaughter and May which recommends a radical overhaul of the way the RFU is run. The outcome will be of interest to the candidates for the chief executive position with the report calling for a reduction in the influence of amateurs on the board and a more leak-proof administration.

Fran Cotton, the former deputy chairman of the union, said the need for a chief executive was paramount. “The RFU is in a mess, and reading the reports about the senior England team that appears to be in the same state. It can only be dealt with by appointing a chief executive with the right skill-set to take us forward.”

Cotton believes the former South Africa and Italy coach Nick Mallett would be the ideal replacement for Johnson, working with the Northampton coaches Jim Mallinder and Dorian West. Mallett has ruled himself out but the RFU has been trying to get him to change his mind.

Another former South Africa coach, the World Cup winner Jake White, has expressed an interest. “I’m sure that if an opportunity came about, it’s something I’d like to do again,” he said. “I don’t know how I’d react if I was called by the RFU, one never knows until you are in that situation.”

The former England centre Mike Tindall, who was thrown out of the elite squad this month and fined €27,500 for misconduct at the World Cup, is likely to learn the outcome of his appeal today.