Rugby World Cup 2011: Rugby Football Union heads for meltdown as England crisis grows

Two days after their limp World Cup exit against France, England’s players left New Zealand in two groups, although even their final day in the country was marred by yet another apparent breach of discipline after it emerged that Lewis Moody is set to be fined by organisers for wearing a sponsored mouthguard.

That the England captain stands accused of committing the same offence for which team-mate Manu Tuilagi was fined £5,000 heaps further embarrassment on both Moody and Martin Johnson, whose future as England manager is in the balance.

This followed Tuilagi’s detention by Auckland police on Sunday for jumping from a ferry on the city’s waterfront. England’s players hardly seemed repentant at the airport yesterday as Tuilagi and Mike Tindall jokingly recreated the moment a drunken Tindall buried his head in the bosom of a blonde during a night in a dwarf-themed bar in Queenstown after England’s opening game.

While England’s players were preparing for their flights, the battle for control of the RFU was intensifying, with a growing number of clubs demanding major changes, and the Government demanding an explanation over what steps the governing body will take to restore faith in its handling of the sport.

More than 100 clubs have backed a proposal by Leicestershire club Market Bosworth that Thomas step down from all executive and non-executive positions in the RFU following criticism of his behaviour in the Blackett report into the appointing and sacking of John Steele as chief executive.

The groups, who support the return of former chief executive Francis Baron, plan to force a special general meeting to remove Thomas. A significant number of the governing body’s past presidents are also expected to back the call for an SGM.

Thomas’s position was placed in further jeopardy last night as it emerged that sports minister Hugh Robertson would insist on an explanation from RFU leadership of what steps they intended to take to reform governance at the union when they return from New Zealand.

Robertson has pressed the RFU to appoint two independent directors, which it will do soon, but he is thought to have been unimpressed by the continued feuding and the apparent impact on England’s desperate on-field World Cup campaign.

The Government is underwriting the 2015 World Cup to the tune of at least £25million and Robertson will want comfort that the organisation is capable of running itself before it begins to address running the biggest event in the game.

Thomas responded to the growing pressure on him by issuing a remarkable joint statement with RFU president Willie Wildash and chairman Paul Murphy which said the organisation was not “in a mess” or “dysfunctional” and said calls for an SGM were “not the way rugby people should behave”.

But that is unlikely to deter Thomas’s critics. Thomas is already facing an internal investigation into whether he should be charged with bringing the game into disrepute over the findings of the Blackett report, and it is understood that senior rugby figures outside the RFU were yesterday attempting to force a resolution of the issue.

If a move to force the resignation of Thomas, who had to step down as RFU chairman for his role in Steele’s sacking, is successful it would be likely to plunge the review of England’s World Cup campaign into disarray. Rob Andrew, the RFU’s operations director who is set to be appointed to a new position of professional rugby director, is leading the principal review.

Johnson is considering his future after his three-year tenure resulted in England’s worst World Cup performance since 1999. His contract ends on Dec 31 but Thomas suggested on Sunday that he would get the support of the union if he wanted to carry on.

Andrew, however, has indicated that it would take four to six weeks to conduct his own appraisal before making his recommendations to the board.

Should Thomas be forced to resign it is likely to create more uncertainty about the review process, which Andrew hopes to complete by Jan 1.

In what appeared to be a snub on those RFU member clubs exercising their democratic right to call an SGM, Murphy – despite having not been elected to his position – said council members seeking to remove Thomas “have put a personal matter above the greater good of the RFU”.