JOHN RICHARDSON, the English RFU president, yesterday launched a bitter personal attack and questioned the motives of the Lions manager Fran Cotton after he suggested an influential minority of RFU members were plotting to withdraw England from the Five Nations Championship.

Cotton claimed "unofficial meetings are taking place" with the aim of getting England and France to pull out of the championship and set up a rival tournament along with Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

Richardson questioned the motives of Cotton, who will become a Lancashire representative on the RFU committee in July, and went, on so restate England's long-term, commitment to the game's oldest tournament. The RFU have agreed a legally binding £87.5 million television deal with BSkyB, who will screen Five Nations matches until 2002.

"Fran Cotton's comments defy belief and leave us to query his motives," said Richardson in an unusually hard-hitting statement. "We have never expressed any wish to withdraw from the Five Nations. Indeed, only last September it cost us considerable money to settle with the other countries regarding TV rights in order to stay in.

"We have always said that the Five Nations is vital to us - it is an integral part of rugby. We have also said that in order to compete with the best in the world, we must play the best. That is what we are doing before Christmas next season. We have fixtures with, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand in that period, as well as a game against Australia in Sydney in July. However, we remain absolutely committed to the Five Nations.

Cotton insisted that moves were afoot within the RFU to pull both England and France out of the championship with the aim of improving their chances of winning the World Cup. His comments follow last week's controversial allegation that RFU secretary Tony Hallett had twice misled an RFU special meeting over the conditions of the BSkyB deal.

"There is a small group of influential people in the RFU who wish to break up the Five Nations," said Cotton. "There is some dangerous thinking. Most of them are on the RFU executive committee - they have got to be stopped. They think England's best interests are served by not being part of the Five Nations, that they'd be better served by the Southern Hemisphere countries.

"There are people who think England will never win the World Cup playing in the Five Nations. I will fight this tooth and nail. It's crazy that It should drop up so soon after we fought for so long to get England reinstated for this year's championship."

Cotton's warning was dismissed out of hand by Bernard Lapasset, president of the French Rugby Federation. He said: "This is news to us - we rate the Five Nations tournament very highly." The French also have a lucrative TV deal with Antenne 2, the company that transmits all their Five Nations matches.