Are Game Board now plotting a ten-team Premier?

WE could be heading back into the shadowlands of clandestine decisionmaking, with the idea being floated that the Premiership could be reduced to ten teams, with the possibility that a ten-team Championship would come under the umbrella of Premiership Rugby Ltd. The body apparently mulling over this radical plan is the Professional Game Board, which is the joint RFU/PRL ‘thinktank’, the most non-accountable body in the professional game. It operates with an almost total lack of transparency, with no Press conferences, and has never been known to answer questions about its deliberations. What is it good for? No-one knows. The PGB could make a new start by telling us whether one of the reasons for the initiative is because the Premiership’s new ‘A’ League has imploded? If it comes up with a plan for a more even distribution of funds across the top two leagues, it would be even more ground-breaking. Add to that a guarantee that promotion and relegation is a cornerstone of its current plan and it would generate a kudos which until now has passed it by.