The Welsh Rugby Union was last night accused of driving the professional game in Wales towards bankruptcy and warned unless it agreed to a radical administrative overhaul it would lose its leading players to clubs in England and France.

Rugby Partnership Wales, a joint venture company made up of Llanelli, Swansea, Cardiff, Newport, Bridgend and Pontypridd, said the Welsh game was facing meltdown with clubs having to survive on half the income they needed.

It called for the number of premier clubs in Wales to be reduced from nine to six, meaning Neath, Ebbw Vale and Caerphilly would cease to exist as professional entities, and demanded that the WRU entered into a partnership with them to administer the professional game on the lines of the agreement hammered out by the Zurich Premiership clubs and Twickenham earlier this year.

Agreement was only reached in England after the players publicly sided with the clubs. The Welsh six hold the contracts of their players, only one of whom, the Cardiff outhalf Iestyn Harris, is signed up to the WRU, and there is the prospect of the RPW clubs withholding their players from Wales's Six Nations campaign which starts next February.

"That is something we have not discussed," said Stuart Gallacher, the RPW chairman, "but the players are 100 per cent behind us. The quality of Welsh rugby is below all levels of acceptability: the game, which is effectively bankrupt, has unequivocally failed to come to terms with professionalism and we are all now paying the price."

The clubs met the WRU last week but failed to reach an agreement. The union's plans revolved around contracting the players centrally and fielding composite teams in Europe and the Celtic League: the clubs demanded the status of their counterparts in England and France, arguing regional rugby would be a turn-off for players and spectators.

RPW yesterday outlined its vision of the future. If it was an example of how it would run the game, it has a long way to go: the document it presented to the media contained more in the way of slogans than policies.

The clubs said they needed £3 million sterling each a year to break even: they are currently generating an average of £1.6 million, but with sides only guaranteed 12 matches in the Celtic League and Europe, a six-team Premier Division would only diminish the fixture list with the probability that BBC Wales would seek a renegotiation of its deal.

The PRW clubs are all kept afloat by benefactors but Gallacher warned the backers would pull out and players leave Wales unless the way the professional game was run changed.