Thomson fears clubs could go out of business unless

Aberdeen Grammar are among the signatories of a letter to the SRU urging the governing body to delay the launch of the controversial Super 6 competition.

Chairman and director of rugby Gordon Thomson said he feared clubs would “go out of business” unless the authorities called a halt to the contentious plans. He told The Press and Journal: “This issue is causing huge uncertainty and anger and nobody knows at the moment what will happen in the future.

“We have to sort it out, because many clubs are working with small budgets and running a very tight ship and when they can’t tell sponsors what’s happening, it just disrupts everything.

“Basically, if we don’t sit down together and broker a peace deal, I have no doubt clubs will go out of business.”

All 10 teams in National One have joined forces to argue that the SRU Council should postpone the new event – featuring Ayr, Boroughmuir, Heriots, Melrose, Stirling Country and Watsonians – for at least 12 months until 2019-20.

They believe many issues remain unresolved about the new structure and its impact on the rest of the Scottish game.

Their collective request was submitted to the SRU board and council last week by National One representative Colin Rigby after discussions at the league’s form meeting on October 17.

The clubs are concerned about what they see as lack of clarity, pressures on squad numbers, sponsorship deals and the leading six organisations being able to cherrypick the best youngsters from the lower-league clubs.

The letter has been passed to the SRU standing committee on governance, chaired by Gavin McColl QC, which was established to review the league structure across Scotland.

It states: “The imposition of the Super 6 by the Scottish Rugby Union on its member clubs at the 2017 SRU AGM, without proper prior consultation nor approval from the stakeholders, has led to a current situation which we, the National One clubs, deem to be unacceptable.”

It says players in SRUadministered competitions are unaware of what they are playing for, which destroys the trust between the players and “those driving the changes that are causing this impasse”.

It adds: “This failure of governance was recognised