The RFU have denied a report claiming they were threatening to ban top players from international competition unless they rip up an agreement signed with the country's leading clubs this week.
Britain's
Daily Mail
newspaper quoted an unidentified RFU official as saying that none of the top players would wear an England jersey again "unless they walked away from the contracts they had just signed with the clubs."
But Brian Baister, chairman of the RFU Management Board said: "Although we are not aware of the identity of the individual concerned, the RFU can state that the comments bear no relation to the RFU's official position, regarding the players or the Premier Rugby proposals.
"And consequently we categorically refute them."
England's top clubs, who have been rowing with the RFU about the future of the game for months, announced this week they were setting up a separate company with the leading players called the Premier Rugby Partnership to run the professional game.
The leading clubs have also introduced proposals to reduce the fixture burden on top players.
"The contracts put them in clear breach of International Rugby Board regulations on release which means they cannot go on the (British) Lions tour of Australia or with England to America (in the European summer)," the RFU official was quoted as saying.
"We will be left with no option but to pick an alternative team consisting of players from the second division and promising youngsters elsewhere."
Former England captain Lawrence Dallaglio has recognised the deal may place his international future in jeopardy, however.
"I have had people talking to me about the worst-case scenario that I won't ever play for England again, but we cannot allow ourselves to think in those terms," Dallaglio said in the Daily Expressnewspaper.
"The important thing to put across is that it isn't about one player or the England squad. It's about every player who plays the professional game," he said.