European clubs and not the Six Nations countries are now the major stumbling block to a global season says New Zealand Rugby chief executive Mark Robinson.
The game's major stakeholders took part in a forum overnight, to again debate the restructuring of the current calendar to better align the international game between the northern and southern hemispheres.
World Rugby, Sanzaar, the Six Nations, the British and Irish Lions and representatives of top European clubs attended.
Robinson said the Six Nations Unions, such as England and France, are keen to sort the calendar out, but French and English clubs rejected the plans.
"Sanzaar and Six Nations were the ones who took the working proposals to the meeting...and we are very very aligned as we are with World Rugby and the various Players Associations around the world.
"The challenge (to the proposal) comes from predominantly the French and English club competitions," said Robinson.
Despite that Robinson remains hopeful of a global season being implemented at some point and but said the sport can't afford to miss the opportunity the pandemic has provided to "reset" the international calendar.
"Hopefully we can see sense that this is the one opportunity we will have with COVID to have some sort of re-set and we hope that people are acting with the greater interest of the game (at heart) and what it means to the fans along with player welfare in terms of our future calendar and come back and have another go at it in due course."
Robinson has questioned the commitment of the French and English clubs to player welfare.
"The calendar in France, for example, takes up 42 weeks of the year - (so) to talk about player welfare in a season like that seems a bit counter-intuitive to me so we would have hoped for a little bit more compromise.
No date has been set for a resumption of talks.
RNZ
