RFU takes action to safeguard fans from 50mph winds

The Rugby Football Union has been forced to take precautionary measures to ensure the safety of supporters at Twickenham today, with gusts of wind up to 50mph forecast during the Guinness Six Nations match against Scotland.

The RFU agreed a series of safety precautions, with the elevated big screens in the fans’ village in the west car park set to be lowered to stage level and secured to the ground, or even removed. Flags and inflatables may also be taken down.

Supporters will still be able to watch the other two matches of “Super Saturday”, however, including Wales’s bid to win the Grand Slam against Ireland, who also have outside hopes of winning the title.

There will be a minute’s silence held at all three Six Nations matches out of respect to the 49 people who were killed in attacks on the Al Noor and Linwood mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Meanwhile, World Rugby’s bid to establish a Nations Championship is hanging in the balance after unions yesterday received a 27-page document providing the fine details of the presentation that was made in Dublin on Thursday.

There is doubt about whether all Six Nations unions will be able to meet World Rugby’s deadline of March 29 for a decision by all 12 nations involved if they wish to proceed with the proposal, given the amount of due diligence required.

The Six Nations is also considering two other declarations of interest, from private equity firm CVC and sports marketing agency IMG, which gave a presentation of a £1.75 billion investment proposal for Project Light, the plan to aggregate the rights of the championship and autumn Test matches.

The unions are also mulling over the financial impact of promotion and relegation – a fundamental element of World Rugby’s proposal.

World Rugby has unveiled its own £5billion Nations Championship project that will guarantee at least a £10 million uplift per year to each of the 12 competing unions over the next dozen years.

However, unions are keen to seek assurances about the funding guaranteed by Swiss-based Infront Sports, headed up by Sepp Blatter’s nephew Philippe Blatter and owned by Wanda, a Chinese multinational conglomerate.

The first year of the new championship is scheduled for 2022, if it is given the go-ahead, but sources are concerned that the knockout stages in November and December would go head-to-head with the football World Cup in Qatar.

There are also concerns the plan will lead to a reduction of the number of matches involving tiertwo nations, which had been guaranteed by the San Francisco accord in January 2017 for a new global season.