Leinster have enjoyed unprecedented success on the European stage - most recently winning the Amlin Challenge Cup © PA Photos

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A leading Irish Rugby Football Union figure is adamant that none of their provinces will join the new European tournament proposed by their English and French rivals.

Premiership Rugby, the umbrella body for the leading English clubs, and their French counterparts, the Ligue National de Rugby, plan to launch the Rugby Champions Cup in 2015-16 having failed to negotiate a re-vamp of the Heineken Cup. They have also refused to deal with the union-dominated European Rugby Cup Ltd, the organisers of both the Heineken Cup and the Amlin Challenge Cup, and insist the clubs will take on the responsibility of running the new competition.

The Rugby Champions Cup will be open to teams from the rival PRO12 league but Peter Boyle, an IRFU representative on the ERC management board, has pledged his loyalty to the current set-up and ruled out the union-funded Connacht, Leinster, Munster or Ulster throwing their support behind the new competition.

"The RFU and French Rugby Federation have already confirmed that there will be no new company other than ERC to run European competitions," Boyle told the Independent on Sunday. "It is unequivocal that the negotiation of TV and other rights is central and it's done by ERC. The IRFU are bound into ERC and that restricts completely the movement of Leinster, Munster, Ulster and Connacht."

Boyle has also rejected claims that the PRO12 have refused to give any ground in negotiations with the English and French sides, insisting that the IRFU were prepared to give ground on the subject of meritocratic qualification and reducing the Heineken Cup from 24 teams to 20.