Doncaster Knights granted RFU approval to claim promotion to Premiership - only problem is they're eighth

Ealing Trailfinders, the team with a 13-point lead at the top of the second tier, have been told that they along with Coventry - the other two teams to apply for the audit - have failed to meet the governing body’s criteria and cannot be promoted.

It effectively means that the Premiership will remain a closed shop with no promotion or relegation between the top two divisions for the 2025/26 season.

The news came just two hours after Newcastle Falcons’ director of rugby Steve Diamond outlined his club’s own dire financial plight, even if the blow to Ealing means the north east club will stay a Premiership outfit next season.

According to reports over the weekend, other Premiership teams and CVC Capital Partners – who hold a 27 per cent stake in the league – are considering loaning Newcastle around £4m to meet financial requirements for next season.

In the 2022-23 season, a financial crisis in the Premiership saw three clubs enter administration with the collapses of London Irish, Wasps and Worcester as the league dropped to 10 teams. Jersey Reds, who won the Championship the following season, went bust soon after.

Newcastle are the most northerly-based team in the top flight, with Friday night’s opponents Sale their nearest neighbours. Despite Doncaster’s stability in the second tier and the infrastructure they have in place that means they now repeatedly meet the Premiership’s requirements, there has not been a Yorkshire team in the top flight since Leeds Carnegie began their spiral into near financial ruin in 2011.

Diamond has insisted that the Falcons need long-term investment rather than a quick fix.

He said: “In a case of desperation, the Premiership clubs assisting and Premiership Rugby assisting would be probably a methodology of keeping us going for a year.

“For the investors who need to come into Newcastle, it needs to be a 10 or 15-year plan.

“You want an investor who’s not going to just put a couple of million quid in to get us through next year, I don’t think. I think we need to look bigger than that. There’s no point solving the problem for a year and this time in 12 months we’re in the same boat.

“Could the (Rugby Football Union) get involved? I don’t think they could really, I think it would be difficult for them.

“Geographically it’s enormous, it’s not the north east, it’s Cumbria across, it’s the whole top of England. Sale and Newcastle represent everything up from the midlands. It’s a massive rugby area.”