FORMER England centre Clive Woodward yesterday quit as coach of London Irish after accusing the club of being racist.

Woodward, who guided the Exes into the top flight of the Courage League in only his second year in the job this season, stormed out of the club's annual general meeting and then branded them as "probably illegal".

Woodward said: "They passed a resolution that said that the people working on the general committee would normally be of Irish descent.

"They were prepared to offer dispensations for Englishmen like me, but I did not want to be regarded as a special case. When I joined the club a couple of years ago, I was absolutely assured that it was an open club.

"The vote to retain the Irishness on a formal basis was narrow, but it did show a bigoted element among the members and that Englishmen could be there only on sufferance.

London Irish chairman Duncan Leopold promised the club would make every effort to persuade Woodward to change his mind. "We believe this is a misinterpretation by him of our position," Leopold said.

"At a special meeting a few weeks ago, when the club became a limited company, we removed the clause that every committee man had to be of Irish descent.

"At yesterday's annual meeting some members queried the fact that that clause had been taken out of our constitution. But we remain an open club and only by a 75 per cent majority can the non Irish clause be reinserted."