The sponsorship of European club rugby's showpiece tournament, the Heineken Cup, has been thrown open to bidders after the current backers declined to renew their contract within the exclusive time frame open to them.
Europe's largest brewery company has sponsored the competiton since its inception in 1995, apart from the 1998-99 season. Its future support must now be in doubt once the deal ends in May.
The mobile telecommunications firm Orange, one of the backers of the Parker Pen Challenge Cup, is the favourite to take over. The organisers of both competitions, European Rugby Cup Ltd, face a hectic bout of negotiations, with the Parker Pen contract also ending in May along with the deals of the three main broadcasters of the Heineken Cup: BBC, RTE and the French station FR2.
"Nothing should be read into Heineken's failure to conclude a new deal within the negotiation period which was open only to them," said an ERC spokesman last night. "We are still talking to Heineken and we are now able to open discussions with other companies. It is an important deal for the European game and we are not setting deadlines.
"The Heineken Cup continues to go from strength to strength, as the viewing figures for this season's tourna ment show. It is not the best time to negotiate television or sponsorship deals, but we believe our product is good enough to ensure that we are able to get an improvement on our current deals."
ERC earn more than £10m a year through television and sponsorship and 3.3m viewers tuned in to the BBC last month for the Heineken Cup match between Gloucester and Munster, a 28% audience share.
The South African Rugby Football Union, meanwhile, maintained a diplomatic silence yesterday after allegations that the Springbok captain Corne Krige committed seven undetected acts of foul play against England at Twickenham last Saturday.
However South Africa's sport and recreation minister, Ngconde Balfour, offered his unequivocal support for the Springboks, accusing the referee Paddy O'Brien of panicking and claiming England continually killed the ball. "I back the team totally," he said.
The arrival of the former South Africa full-back Percy Montgomery at Newport has prompted the departure of the club's Australia and Italy international full-back Matt Pini, whose parting shot was to accuse players in Wales of being unfit and overpaid.
"There is a long way to go in terms of professionalism for players in Wales," said Pini. "There still seems to be a big thing about playing on the Saturday and getting in the drink during the week."
