The Premiership is set for another season without promotion and relegation after Championship league leaders Ealing Trailfinders failed to meet the minimum standards criteria required for elevation.
The west London club top the second division by 13 points have won the league in two of the last three seasons, but have failed to satisfy requirements around ground capacity and safety compliance set by the Rugby Football Union (RFU).
Third-placed Coventry also failed to meet the criteria, with the sole Championship side eligible for promotion Doncaster Knights. The Yorkshire outfit sit 29 points behind Trailfinders in eighth.
Were a club to top the table and satisfy the RFU’s regulations, they would face the bottom-placed Premiership side in a promotion/relegation play-off. It is now four years since Saracens, who were relegated from the Premiership after the salary cap scandal, were the last team to move between rugby’s top two tiers.
“We are in a new era for the men's professional game and there are ongoing and very live conversations about how we can build an investable framework that ensures that it is sustainable,” Mike McTighe, chair of the Men's Professional Rugby Board, said.
“While right now only one Championship club is meeting the requirements that would enable them to come into the league, we are working hard to ensure that is not always the case and that we apply the right flexibility and support where it’s appropriate.
"We know how hard those clubs with aspirations to join the Premiership are working both to generate the required investment to be sustainable within that league and to ensure they have the required infrastructure to support themselves.”
There is renewed scrutiny on the finances of English club rugby union after a report from Sky News suggested that the other nine Premiership clubs and league investors CVC Capital Partners are preparing to provide a loan to Newcastle Falcons to keep the club going.
Premiership Rugby’s financial monitoring panel, set up following the demise of Worcester, Wasps and London Irish, require assurances from all 10 of the league’s clubs by the end of April that they can financially fulfil the 2025/26 campaign, with decisions and rulings then finalised by the end of the season.
Newcastle’s owner, Semore Kurdi, announced last year that he was seeking a sale of the club but investment has not, as yet, been forthcoming.
The club, currently bottom of the Premiership, have frozen recruitment for next season amid the uncertainty, but Newcastle boss Steve Diamond has insisted that the club are in “good fettle”.
“It’s public record we are looking for investment and I am pretty sure that if that investment doesn’t come, then this (loan) is a fallback position to maintain our status in the league,” said Diamond, who was director of rugby at Worcester at the time of their suspension from the Premiership.
“When I was at Worcester, the situation was different to now because it was never out there that we needed investment and everyone was kept in the dark, including Premier Rugby and the RFU. The only conversation Semore [Kurdi, current owner] and I have had is over potential investors coming in.
“I am confident Newcastle will be playing next season and I am unaware of what the promotion and relegation is and if other teams don’t meet the criteria or play off we will be active to retain our status. This year has gone remarkably well compared to where we were, even though we are still losing £2m. We are in good fettle.”
