Saracens have been assured that they will complete their Champions Cup defence even if they are no longer in English rugby’s top flight when the tournament resumes.
The Londoners, condemned to relegation next season for multiple salary cap breaches, are awaiting a revised date to travel to Dublin for their quarter-final against Leinster.
With rugby in Britain and Ireland as yet unclear when it will be able to restart, the possibility exists that the new Championship season will have started before this European campaign has finished.
Aware of the potential for fixture chaos, Champions Cup boss Simon Halliday last night moved to provide some clarity for a club which has won three of the last four finals and are current title holders.
“Saracens have qualified for the quarter-finals and I’ll defend their right to complete the Champions Cup campaign no matter what,” he said.
“As long as we can complete the tournament they should be allowed to participate for as long as they keep on winning.”
The English Premiership hopes to restart, using two neutral venues, in mid August after clubs were given the green light to return to non-contact training yesterday. The Pro14 has pencilled in an August 22 date to resume behind closed doors.
French rugby cannot get going again before September, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe has ruled, which means the best case scenario is Europe’s three knockout rounds starting that month and concluding with the final in October.
But by then England's second tier Championship could well have started its new season with a fixture list containing a Saracens club also still to complete its 2019/20 Premiership campaign.
The next four to six weeks are key to rugby mapping out its future. What is certain is that the scheduled September 12 start date for next season’s Premiership can be binned.
“In the very short term we are all screaming with pain due to the financial impact of no rugby and no crowds,” said Halliday, chief executive of EPCR. “It’s really horrendous what it’s doing to the game and its revenues.
“But there is a belief that we can get our players fit enough and safe enough to play three big weekends of European rugby through September and October.”
A month after Halliday used these pages to complain that the sport was not working together to devise a future strategy amenable to all, he now says there is a united front between World Rugby, national unions and club concerns.
“We’re all talking and I’m really pleased,” he said. “Hopefully by the end of June there will be consensus building on how best to deal with the very short term - and perhaps the years ahead as well.”
