However, he has stressed that a move away from the Championship is not currently on the cards due to significant logistical hurdles.
Several figures in the game have stated that professional tier-two teams are better off in France.
Championship clubs received just £80,000 from the Rugby Football Union this season – a staggering reduction of £455,000 per club from two years ago – while French Pro D2 sides are each in receipt of around £2million, largely through funding from Ligue Nationale Rugby (LNR) broadcasting arrangements with some additional finance through a criteria including the use of academy players.
Morgan has previously slammed the RFU for an ‘irresponsible and immoral’ approach to English rugby’s second tier, stating that it’s thrown the long-term future of the league into jeopardy as the governing body continues to slash central funding.
On the potential of joining the French league structure, he believes it is ‘not yet viable, but that could change’.
Morgan said: ‘It is an idea we’ve looked at before, but logistically it is a problem. We’re much closer to France geographically than we are to England but it just won’t work at the moment, and the reason it won’t work is that even before Covid, there just aren’t the linkages into France.’
‘I’m also not convinced either that currently the French would be too interested in having an English RFU team in their league structure.’
- Full story in Thursday’s JEP.
