Tew says any decision is a ‘long, long way to go’

Rugby was in no position to establish any global competition in March, and any conjecture otherwise was wide of the mark.

He made it very clear that while there is support of any move that brings in more revenue in challenging times and adds some vibrancy to the test programme, there was a long, long way to go to find alignment among the nations involved.

And he denied that the end of the current Six Nations broadcasting deal had put a stopwatch on this project.

‘‘There has been nothing agreed to date,’’ Tew said.

‘‘We have been looking at a series of options, and we have been dealing with pluses and minuses of each those options in due course. World Rugby is running a very complex set of stakeholder consultations.

‘‘The meeting we have scheduled in Europe in March is a critical milestone, and until we get to that point there’s not too much more we can say.’’ The world’s top rugby players are up in arms over the international body’s plans for what they see as a fundamentally flawed global league, but Kiwi powerbroker Rob Nichol does not believe the standoff will come down to a strike.

Top test stars, via their collective the International Rugby Players Association, have come out hard in their condemnation of World Rugby’s plans for a new global league that is slated to run non-World Cup years and effectively create a closed shop among the chosen 12 sides locking in to a 12-year agreement.

The players’ body has major concerns over unfeasible workload and the integrity of the game and believe that far from addressing the key issues of international rugby, the mooted competition