Paul Rees

A new European Cup accord will be signed this week after nearly two years of fraught negotiations and stand-offs. The six unions involved in the tournament, together with officials from competing sides in England, France and Wales, were meeting in Paris on Monday to finalise the details.

It was hoped the stakeholders would be able to sign the heads of agreement at the meeting but the translation of the document into Italian was completed only over the weekend and their rugby federation said it had not had time to fully scrutinise it.

The running of the tournament will pass from European Rugby Cup Ltd (ERC) to the auspices of a Six Nations committee, with the day-to-day business handled by an executive board strongly influenced by the clubs and regions. The commercial reins will be held by a sub-committee made up of representatives from each of the three leagues that supply teams to the tournament – the Premiership, the Top 14 and the Pro 12. It will give the English and French clubs an in-built majority, but if a vote is split 2-1, an independent chairman, who it is envisaged will be recruited from the business world, would try to broker unanimity.

The one outstanding issue is the broadcasting of the tournament. ERC signed a contract extension with Sky in September 2012 when the Premiership clubs sold their rights for cross-border matches to BT Sport. The two companies, who share the rights for Premier League football, have been talking for a month about a similar arrangement in European rugby. The value for both lies in being able to show matches involving English clubs.

Sky and BT were reported at the weekend to be cautiously optimistic about a compromise being reached. "I am optimistic a solution can be found," said the BT Vision chief executive, Marc Watson, while the head of Sky Sports, Barney Francis, confirmed talks were taking place "The game has had a difficult time and it will take compromise from all parties."

ERC has held on to participation money since the end of January after its directors, on legal advice, decided that reserves were needed to meet any costs from potential litigation should the company, which has run the Heineken since its start in 1995, be wound up, which it now will be.

The feeling in Paris on Monday was that the heads of agreement should be signed and the television issue than addressed. The format of both the Heineken Cup, which is set to be renamed even if the title sponsors remain on board, and the Amlin Challenge Cup is changing, with both tournaments featuring 20 teams.

It is hoped that a third tournament made up of teams largely from tier-two nations will start next season and be run by Fira, the governing body of the smaller unions in Europe.

The change will affect this season, even though there is only 10 weeks left of it. Under the new accord, 19 teams will automatically qualify for the European Cup on merit: the top six in the English and French leagues and seven from the Pro 12 made up of the top teams from all four countries involved in it and three others based on finishing positions in the table.

The last place next season will not go to the Heineken Cup winners but the winners of a play-off between the teams that finish seventh in the Premiership and the Top 14. It has still be to decided whether that would be a one-off match with home advantage decided by the toss of a coin or a two-legged affair.

Wasps and Racing Metro are currently seventh in their respective leagues, but the position in France is especially complicated: the Paris club is eight points off the top and and two points above the club in 10th in a table that changes every week with away victories rare. If the team that finishes seventh is involved in the latter stages of on of the two European tournaments – Wasps, Toulouse, Stade Francais and Brive are all in quarter-final action next month – a two-legged play-off would be difficult to arrange ahead of national tours.

The play-off system will change next season when four teams will be involved: the seventh-placed team in England and France together with two sides from the Pro 12. The problem will again be arranging the fixtures if the teams involved are still in Europe come the final month of the season.

The profits from the tournament will be split equally between the three leagues with the Pro 12 being given a guarantee of £20m even if the sum fails to reach £60m. When it does, they would have the next £4m. There will be a significant merit element and the clubs and regions, together with the French Rugby Federation, want the organising body to be moved from Ireland.

While agreement has been reached late in the campaign, a solution looked unlikely at the end of October when plans were drawn up for a five-nation tournament that did not involve England or the majority of the French clubs, persuading the Premiership clubs and the Welsh regions to start organising an Anglo-Welsh league.

It was the efforts of the Rugby Football Union chief executive, Ian Ritchie, who kept in constant touch with all sides on the phone and in face-to-face meetings, that brought everyone back to the negotiating table and saved the game in Europe from a potentially damaging series of High Court actions.

How Europe will look:

• European Cup made up of 20 teams: six from the Premiership and Top 14 and seven from the Pro 12, including the top team from each of the four countries involved. The final place to be decided by a play-off. The tournament winner will not automatically qualify.

• Challenge Cup made up of 20 teams, two of which would come from outside the three leagues compared to the current six. A third tournament made up of teams from tier two nations with the format to be decided.

• The proceeds would be divided equally between the three leagues with merit money from the quarter-finals onwards.

• The tournaments will be run by the Six Nations committee with the three leagues running the commercial arm. There will still be a board and chief executive, but the role of chairman will change with an independent brought in from the business world to help resolve split votes.

• Tournament headquarters likely to be moved from Dublin.

• The name of the tournament still has to be agreed, together with whether there should be a title sponsor.