Cornish Pirates future hinges on RFU, says owner Evans

Cornish Pirates are currently third in the Championship

Cornish Pirates owner Dicky Evans says the future of the club hinges on the Rugby Football Union's plans for the game below the Premiership.

Evans says two international consortiums are willing to take over from him, but they are "waiting for key decisions from the RFU".

The Championship club says it is issuing contracts for next season with a break clause at the end of 2024, should funding dry up.

Evans announced two years ago he would end his near three-decades long association with the club by 2025.

At the time he pledged £2.5m over three years in his 'Sunset Plan' to give the Pirates time to find new owners.

Dicky Evans' funding has seen Cornish Pirates progress to the second tier of English rugby

Championship clubs rejected plans for a franchise-based second tier in November.

Clubs in the second tier currently receive about £160,000 a year from the RFU, down from around £600,000 a year before the Covid-19 pandemic.

Pirates sold Truro City Football Club to Canadian investors late last year and had a crowdfunding campaign to raise money to keep the club going.

"Understandably new investors need confidence that the RFU backs merit-based promotion and will not carve up the rugby market to favour a handful of Premiership clubs, locked in their ivory tower and allowing no Championship clubs through the door," Evans said in a statement on the club website.

"Those decisions have been delayed again. As this season draws to a close, I am determined that, despite needing to vary the terms of their contracts, players and staff have the certainty that they are part of the Pirates’ future, a future in which we remain a proud Cornish employer and an elite top flight Championship club. One day, in my lifetime, a Premiership club.

"So it's down to the RFU to provide a solid foundation on which new investors in this very famous rugby club can base their financial decisions."