Sorry Monsieur, Toulon cannot join our League!

IT’S NOT going to happen. Toulon are not going to join the Aviva Premiership. Sorry to stick a pin in the balloon early on this one, but it is a ludicrous and somewhat sinister notion.

Premiership Rugby confirmed yesterday that a letter had been received from the European champions, requesting entry into England’s elite league from next season.

Mourad Boudjellal, the owner of the wealthy French club, insisted: ‘I’m serious in my approach.’

Sorry Monsieur, but this mad-cap idea is a non-starter.

This is not, in fact, a sudden craving on the part of Boudjellal for his Test-class team to swap awaydays in Paris and Bordeaux, Montpellier and Toulouse for trips to Barnet and Reading, Coventry and Salford. He is merely sabrerattling amid an on-going row with the Ligue Nationale de Rugby over salary-cap restrictions.

It is a game of brinkmanship on the part of Mad Mourad, who has a colourful record of issuing public threats against officialdom. What he dislikes is having his wings clipped with the greater good in mind, so a spending limit of 810million and a curb on payment of bonuses is regarded as an affront to his club’s ambition. So he has concocted an outlandish plan, but it would have to be approved by the respective unions and there is no way that the RFU would give it a moment’s thought, or even take it seriously.

In fact, Boudjellal himself isn’t really serious, given that the English cap is lower than the French one.

The sinister element of this nonsense is that it is another sign of how rich clubs on both sides of the Channel resent being held back by the have-nots.

There have been rumblings for some time about the concept of a European Super League.

A break-away by the clubs with the most money would be a destructive process, given the control of the unions, as governing bodies.

It may not be long before the battle lines are drawn in earnest and any vision of a cosy cabal formed by the leading benefactors, founded on self-interest, must be resisted by all those with the wider health of the game at heart.

Last Friday, the Ospreys beat mighty Clermont Auvergne, in a result which defied the budget deficit between the teams.

Sport is enlivened by upsets, by David beating Goliath from time to time. Bank-balance clout should not allow certain individuals to carve up the landscape.