NATIONAL One leaders Rams are among the clubs to have submitted an expression of interest to join the new Tier 2 League proposed by the RFU.
Reading-based Rams have gone through the 16-page Minimum Operating Standards document and are confident they can meet the mandatory requirements within the timeframes set by the RFU.
A draft copy of the document, which TRP has seen, states that the minimum total licensed capacity of the club's principal
A draft copy of the document, which TRP has seen, states that the minimum total licensed capacity of the club's principal in time for the inaugural season of the competition, which will replace the Championship, in 2025/26.
Rams' Old Bath Road ground already meets that figure and they'd have over four years to increase the number of seats currently inside the ground from 300 to the 800 required by July 1, 2028.
Dedicated press rooms, TV gantries and changing rooms of a certain size, and close to the principal playing area, are some of the other criteria stipulated by the document.
"I think it is a good document. When you look through it, it seems pretty reasonable to me. I think some Championship sides won't have any problem meeting the criteria, some National One sides won't have too much of a problem," said Rams' chief executive Gary Reynolds.
"I think everybody knows we have to have certain minimum standards.
If rugby wants to be taken seriously outside of the Premiership and the Six Nations and the World Cup then we have got to go to work and make it more at tractive for people to come along and watch a tier two or tier three game."
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