International rugby players' chief Tony Dempsey has accused the Rugby World Cup organisers of being "out of step with modern global trends" following their refusal to discuss issues contained in the tournament's controversial participation agreement.

The world's player associations are anxious to meet with the International Rugby Board and Rugby World Cup Ltd to discuss issues which, in a worst case scenario, could see players refuse to sign up for the tournament.

The fall-out is over prize-money, despite the tournament being anticipated to make a £100million profit, but more importantly the requirement for all players to sign over their image rights.

"The IRB and RWC Ltd want to have their cake and eat it too," said Dempsey, who is also chief executive of the Australian Players Association.

"They want to impose employer related obligations on the players such as unlimited use of their images in perpetuity for commercial exploitation without financial rewards.

"They are out of step with modern global trends."

Dempsey and his IRPA vice-chairman Damian Hopley have become increasingly frustrated with the failure to organise a meeting with the IRB, despite repeated attempts since they received a copy of the participation agreement in January.

"The IRPA has made considerable efforts since the start of this year to engage the IRB on issues of concern to players surrounding the World Cup, including use of players' image and signature," said Dempsey.

"To date the IRB have simply sought to shrug off these issues claiming they are a matter for the individual player associations to resolve with their individual national governing bodies."

The fear in the corridors of the IRPA is that diverting the focus of negotiations back on to the unions will undermine the relationships built up with the domestic player associations during the professional era.

"Effectively RWC has abdicated their responsibility and asked the unions to negotiate with the player associations. That is only going to put the players and the unions into some form of conflict," said Hopley, also England's players union chief.

"It would be dangerous and slightly inflammatory for us to say there will be boycotts but I think the players, as key stakeholders in the sport, are quite right to request that the IRB front up and discuss these various issues.

"Long gone are the days of players being told what to do.

"We operate now in a multi-million pound industry, the players have short career spans and need to know their rights are being looked after."

Those feelings were echoed by Dempsey said: "What the IRB/RWC Limited are proposing is something that would undermine significantly arrangements that have been agreed between (ARU chief executive) John O'Neill and the players association here in Australia over the last seven years.

"This is very disappointing and we would expect the ARU to be somewhat perplexed by the archaic attitude of the IRB/RWC Limited."

A number of unions have their own issues with the participation agreement, largely surrounding the ruling that forbids a team from wearing its sponsors' logo anywhere in public.

The home nation unions have appealed to the IRB over the ruling, which is likely to cost them significant income when the contracts come up for renegotiation unless guarantees for the next World Cup can be put in place.

"All the key stakeholders have issues and yet we aren't being afforded the good grace of a meeting," Hopley told PA International.

"I suspect there are a lot of unions that have issues with the participation agreement and therefore so do the players.

"Its a fairly draconian document that has been put together."