Wales’ June Test in the USA is feared to be in serious doubt as unrest grows Stateside due to miserable ticket sales and the impending collapse of the company staging the fixture, part-funded by the RFU and Harlequins.

Wales are set to play South Africa on June 2 in Washington DC before they tour Argentina and the Springboks face England back home.

The match was set up by a promotional company which has RFU Chief Executive Stephen Brown as a board member.

Wales's Test match against South Africa in Washington DC on June 2 is in serious doubt

But as that company – Rugby International Marketing (RIM) – haemorrhages money, with a staggering £3m ($4.2million) lost by the end of 2017, there are grave concerns surrounding Wales’ US Test.

And now the RFU may be forced to abandon this venture with RIM amid fears of the company’s doomed future.

It has come to light this morning that Harlequins are also deeply concerned by RIM’s precarious situation.

As anxiety grows Sportsmail understands they too will consider their position as investors. The club would lose a huge amount of money if RIM went under.

A spokeswoman said: ‘the RFU is a minority shareholder in RIM. We are aware of the situation and are considering our position.’

Wales and South Africa have reportedly had original their match fee of £720,000 ($1m) reduced to £540,000 ($750,000) and it is understood the Test may need around 27,000 supporters to turn up at the 46,000-capacity RFK Stadium to break even.

For their part it is understood South Africa are not too concerned by the fee reduction as the match will give them a foothold in the US market, one which so many are trying to crack.

But with only handfuls of tickets sold and less than six weeks until kick-off there have been high-level discussions at USA Rugby about changing the date, venue and even the teams for the Washington DC fixture – with Wales or South Africa playing USA instead.

Warren Gatland's summer plans could be thrown in jeopardy by postponement of Test match

Sportsmail has seen USA Rugby meeting minutes from February and March which not only detail major distress among board members, but also the fact that the USA Rugby Players Association (USRPA) lodged a formal objection to the Wales-South Africa match being staged before the game was announced on February 26.

In February’s minutes USA Rugby chairman of the board Will Chang – an investor in the San Francisco Giants Major League baseball team, whose AT&T Park stadium will host the World Cup Sevens tournament in July – noted his concern.

Chang said that when he was originally approached about the event he expressed ‘sincere scepticism’ but commented he would not object if staging the Wales match was thought to be in the best interests of RIM.

During the March 7 meeting the board were asked to ‘revisit the approval to provide USA Rugby sanctioning of the Wales v. South Africa match in June, 2018’ due to financial trouble at RIM, and objections from the USRPA and ‘from key members of the philanthropic arm of USA Rugby’.

Industry experts have also expressed fears to Sportsmail that the game may collapse with no proper American broadcast deal.

NBC and ESPN were reportedly not given enough notice to show the game, which will be broadcast Stateside on The Rugby Channel – a subscription-based online service owned by RIM which is causing the massive financial losses.

Add to that the fact that both sides are set to leave out high-profile names for the Test – with South Africa prioritising their three-match England series in the weeks after, and Wales resting key Lions including captain Alun Wyn Jones – a perfect storm is brewing.

Key influencers in the States believe that RIM should have concentrated more on the USA v Scotland match set for June 16 in Texas, rather than a Test involving two other nations that seems to have little benefit to American rugby.

RIM was set up as a for-profit subsidiary of USA Rugby in 2015 and is tasked with staging Tests, while making money for the Union. They put on the famous 2016 Ireland-All Blacks match in Chicago, in conjunction with a sports marketing company. The Wales-South Africa Test is their first solo venture.

Key names, such as Alun Wyn Jones are set to be left out for the Stateside showdown

The RFU and Harlequins are tied into RIM as minority investors having poured £1.4m ($2m) into the company amid an arms-race as clubs, leagues and unions stampede to America in an attempt to crack an emerging rugby market.

The idea was that both would provide American rugby with capital, guidance and expertise on a whole range of commercial topics.

For their part the RFU invested in 2015 – acquiring an 8.4 per cent share of RIM, and their CEO Brown is currently a board member of the failing company.

Harlequins invested the same amount in 2016 as a tie-in with their 150th anniversary celebrations and the match against New Zealand Maori, which was streamed on The Rugby Channel.

But the Londoners split their money in half, buying into RIM and The Rugby Channel with £720,000 ($1m) paid to each. Quins own 3.36 per cent of RIM.

That deal meant RIM would represent Quins’ commercial interests in the States, and the US national teams could use the Premiership club’s facilities when touring Europe.

At The Rugby Channel’s peak in November 2017 it is said to have had 11,600 paid subscribers, by January this year that is thought to have dropped to 11,000. It has had streaming issues in the past. In 2016 the feed showing USA v Italy dropped out with the Eagles down by one point with less than 10 minutes to go.

USA Rugby own just over 75 per cent of RIM, who will pay the Union £1.3m ($1.8m) in licensing fees this year. RIM started with £5.3m ($7.5m) investment but has burned through most of it – The Rugby Channel the main spark.

At a March meeting the Union’s congress said they were worried RIM’s ‘business practices are endangering the payments owed to USA Rugby. In addition, RIM’s failure to maximize their business model makes their long-term viability tenuous,’ and threatened to shut down the company if losses continued.

Dan Payne, a former US international, and USA Rugby CEO – set to leave after the World Cup Sevens and join World Rugby as Chief Executive of Rugby Americas – objected to The Rugby Channel using USA Rugby money and was worried whether RIM could support its licence payments (on average £935,0000 ($1.3m) a year).

RIM CEO David Sternberg, former Head of Media at Manchester United who helped launched their Twitter account in 2013, has since fallen on his sword and an urgent task-force was set up – led by Payne – to save the ailing company.

Pam Kosanke, a former USA Women’s international is now the RIM CEO.

Nigel Melville – the RFU’s Director of Professional Rugby – was pivotal in setting up RIM when he was USA Rugby’s CEO. He sat on the RIM board until he left the States to return home in 2016.

Nigel Melville was pivotal in setting up RIM but the company is now hemorrhaging money

And there is another RFU link to RIM. Sophie Goldschmidt, the former Chief Commercial Officer of the English Union who earned £480,000-a-year before she left in 2016, was a key player in setting up the RFU’s investment in 2015.

She sat on the RIM board too, but left the RFU five months later to become Group Managing Director of CSM Sport and Entertainment – a sports marketing agency.

CSM then invested in RIM in August 2016, buying 8.4 per cent for £1.4m ($2m) in a seemingly identical deal to the RFU, becoming RIM’s exclusive commercial sales agent.

Goldschmidt left CSM in 2017 and now works for the World Surf League. The other investors in RIM are said to be ‘high net-worth individuals’ who make up the other 4.2 per cent ownership.

All this turmoil at RIM, which threatens a match between two of England’s main rivals, is not only aggravating key rugby figures in America but will be inexorably linked back to Twickenham, with so much English influence in the US game.

And it comes at a time when the RFU looks to forge greater ties Stateside in order to break into the American market.

One well-placed source said: ‘American rugby needs time, investment and patience. Rome wasn’t built in a day.

‘Everyone in the game needs to keep that in mind.’

England will play the USA in the 2019 Rugby World Cup, having been drawn in the same pool.