Mark McCafferty is fully behind the new Anglo-French breakaway tournament © Getty Images

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Premiership Rugby's CEO Mark McCafferty has claimed clubs outside of the Anglo-French alliance have expressed interest in the proposed breakaway European tournament.

PRL announced on Tuesday that it had agreed to set up a new Anglo-French tournament and clubs from both the Aviva Premiership and Top 14 would leave the Heineken Cup at the end of the season. The news came after months of negotiations between the six Unions that take part in the Heineken Cup with both PRL and LNR - the body in charge of the Top 14 - serving their notices to leave the tournament back in June 2012.

Both PRL and LNR hold misgivings over the qualification process for the Heineken Cup and the distribution of votes and revenue. They deem both to be weighted in favour of the RaboDirect PRO12 clubs.

But despite Tuesday's announcement, ERC claimed on Wednesday it was optimistic that all clubs were still keen on finding some compromise over the future of the Heineken Cup. However, PRL and LNR have since reiterated that they see any opportunity for negotiations to have been and gone and they are keen to establish a new club-run tournament rather than the current system which is dominated by Unions.

And McCafferty has claimed PRL has already received some interest from clubs both in Europe and elsewhere in the world to potentially join the new breakaway tournament, which needs to be ratified by both the Rugby Football Union and French Federation de Rugby, which looks set to start in the 2014-15 season.

"People have approached us informally at this stage - I can't go beyond that at this stage but it is common sense really," McCafferty told the Telegraph. "We have also had interest actually from outside of Europe as well. I think people recognise that it could be a very strong competition and they want to be part of that."