Premiership rugby executives believe their league could be a billion pound business by 2025 if agreement can be reached this month to inject significant fresh capital into the club game. The owners will meet on Tuesday to debate a £275m offer from a private equity firm for a 51% stake in Premiership Rugby, with a final decision due “within weeks”.

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With a unanimous vote of all 13 member clubs required for the bid from CVC Capital Partners to be accepted, it may well be the proposed deal fails to find sufficient favour. Despite hypothetically ceding a measure of control to a third party focused primarily on making a swift profit, there could be sizeable implications for the clubs regarding player availability should they drive a harder bargain for “loaning” them to the Rugby Football Union for England duty from 2024, when the existing club-country accord expires.

Mark McCafferty, PRL’s chief executive, has confirmed there are other options on the agenda, including floating shares on the stock market, borrowing from a bank or continuing to rely on individual investors, but insists the time is right “to put more horsepower behind what we’re doing”.

Given the clubs collectively lost £28.5m in 2016-17 and anticipate those losses rising further once the 2017-18 accounts are collated, there are also more pressing realities involved.

McCafferty is adamant, however, that the game is not about to sell its soul or flog itself off cheap to the highest bidder. “I can’t see it is in the interests of our shareholders to do anything other than protect the values of the game and support the England team. It doesn’t make sense to dismantle any of that. But clearly there are opportunities out there to attract significant amounts of capital that can accelerate growth and make us bigger, better and stronger. We’ve got a variety of options as to how to achieve that.”

Five years ago the league’s net value was around £300m, since when it has grown by 80%, and McCafferty believes there is substantial further scope for improvement via the sale of overseas TV rights amid increasing worldwide interest in rugby. “It would be very disappointing if it’s not significantly greater in 10 years’ time,” he said. “The challenge is to do it the right way.”

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There is a counter-argument, not least in Wales, Scotland and Ireland, that an all-powerful English league is not a healthy longer-term development for the wider British and Irish game but, ironically, the recent expansion of the Pro14, which includes two South African sides and is dipping its toes into the US sporting market, may well have stirred the Premiership owners into renewed action.

Some of them, not least Saracens’ Nigel Wray, have been striving for 20 years to make their clubs profit-making but Bath’s Bruce Craig, for one, is understood to be wary of the current deal on the table, arguing club rugby will ultimately be worth a good deal more. CVC Capital Partners bought a 70% stake in Formula One in 2006 for around £1.3bn and last year sold it to Liberty Media for about £6.2bn.

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“What’s clear to the owners is that this is a very valuable business and it’s growing very quickly,” McCafferty said. “They want to see that reflected in whatever structure they pursue. I think things will change. It feels like the time is right to do something.

“But I don’t think you should have any doubts whatsoever about their intent to strike the right balance. They’re very conscious about their responsibility to the sport and their cities and towns.

“As has always been the case, the fortunes of the clubs and England will be linked. I don’t see us changing that particularly.”

Time will tell whether that extends to preserving Premiership promotion and relegation, with McCafferty insisting ambitious Championship clubs such as Ealing Trailfinders are setting themselves up for a fall if they merely recruit a competitive squad without the crowds or the infrastructure to match. “I don’t see it [relegation] particularly changing but you’ve got to have a rounded club if you’re going to contribute to the Premiership. Winning the Championship and then hoping for the best doesn’t cut it these days.”