MARTYN THOMAS’S six-year reign at the English Rugby Football Union will end next month, not so much because of the pressure exerted by clubs who wanted him out because of the part he played in the sacking of the chief executive John Steele earlier in the year but because of England’s inglorious World Cup campaign.

Thomas will stand down as the RFU’s acting chief executive when his contract ends on 16 December and will lose his positions on the International Rugby Board, the Six Nations Committee and the board of European Rugby Cup Ltd. He will also not take up his position as the chairman of the organising committee for the 2015 World Cup.

Before the start of the World Cup, he seemed to have secured his power base after fighting off two votes of no confidence.

The votes were put because of criticism made of Thomas’s conduct by an inquiry panel, chaired by the RFU’s chief disciplinary officer, Jeff Blackett, which was instructed by the RFU council to look into the circumstances surrounding the hiring and firing of Steele. When Blackett presented his report, he was interrupted by an email from Thomas’s solicitors, warning that he would be sued for defamation if he published it.

Thomas survived the vote of no confidence that day after Bill Beaumont, a co-opted member of the RFU and the IRB vice-chairman, warned that getting rid of Thomas, who was then the chairman of the board of directors as well as the acting chief executive, would potentially compromise England’s hosting rights in 2015, a claim the IRB later denied.

He survived another vote of no confidence in September, although only 30 of the 56 at the meeting supported him. Disaffected council members then canvassed support from clubs.

He retained the backing of a majority of his board, but that support waned last month. After England’s worst World Cup campaign for 12 years was marred by various incidents involving players off the field, Thomas, without reference to all his fellow directors and without informing the professional game board, commissioned Fran Cotton to conduct an inquiry.

Once both the England squad and the Premiership clubs said they would have nothing to do with Cotton’s inquiry, which was shelved yesterday because it had not been authorised by the game board, some of Thomas’s previous supporters on the board turned on him and agreed he had to go.