Premiership Rugby: we will win TV power struggle Last week, Premiership Rugby, which represents the interests of England's elite clubs, announced a £152 million four-year deal with BT Vision which includes television rights to European competitions, but its legitimacy and legality has been challenged by the Rugby Football Union and European Rugby Cup Limited, the organisation responsible for the Heineken Cup. "I completely accept that people don't understand what we've done in Europe," said Mark McCafferty, Premiership Rugby's chief executive. But we haven't been in a position where we can share that. Once they do, I'm hopeful that they'll be enthusiastic. If they're not, then we will have to start to look at what the alternatives are. We've had one or two thoughts on that because you don't go in without a plan B, but that's not our focus at the moment. McCafferty and other senior figures on the English club scene are highly critical of the way European rugby is run, insisting that there have been no substantial improvements commercially or on the playing front for five years. "We always knew it was going to get dirty," he said, "because we've disturbed the status quo, and people are very comfortable with the status quo. But the status quo is not good enough. People don't appear to acknowledge that we've brought in to the world of rugby a major new investor to the tune of £150 million. Instead, people seem to be focused on who's running what, and who's doing this, that and the other. It underlines why rugby doesn't always meet the ambitions and targets it could do. McCafferty knocked back the RFU's statement that Premiership Rugby did not have permission to sell European rights. If the RFU are concerned about the health of the game in England, which includes the Premiership, then presumably they are going to be enthusiastic about the broadcast deals to improve that.