Peace puts Andrew at heart of English game

Almost four decades after the Americans put a man on the moon, the space-cadet politics that has bedevilled rugby in England since the collapse of amateurism has finally come to an end.

Yesterday, Twickenham's governing classes embraced professional club rugby as the crucial dynamic in the fastest-growing spectator sport in the country and agreed to pay upwards of £110m in new money over eight years in return for access to the leading players. The Premiership fraternity also gave ground in bringing two years of intense negotiations to a conclusion, but they had good reason to celebrate the formal recognition of their place at the centre of the union affairs.

The new agreement will take the game through to the end of the 2015 World Cup, which the Rugby Football Union hopes to host. Under the terms set out in an exhaustive – not to say exhausting – 150-page document, the top end of English rugby will be managed by a Professional Game Board made up of Twickenhamites, leading figures in the club movement, two delegates from the players' union and the former England coach Geoff Cooke, who will represent the National League One teams in a voteless capacity.

Both the RFU and the clubs plan to recruit a heavyweight rugby figure of recent vintage to their PGB team, and are probably fighting over Martin Johnson as we speak. This would be a first, given Johnson's history of fighting over everyone else.

Three 32-man squads will be named each summer – the Test contenders, the second-string Saxons and the Under-20s – and will be made available to the national coaches at agreed junctures during a campaign. The senior squad will have at least 13 days' preparation before the start of the autumn Tests and the Six Nations Championship, and will ordinarily play a maximum of 32 matches a season, rising to 33 if England have a fourth autumn international, as they will every second year from 2010, and 34 if the Lions are on tour in the southern hemisphere, as they will be in 2009.

In return for this, the RFU will pay the clubs more than £7m a year in fees. They will also foot the bill for international match fees – almost £15m over the course of the deal – and shell out another £16m in support of those teams producing England-qualified talent. Crucially, from the union's perspective, these monies will be paid directly to the clubs providing the players, rather than into the central Premiership pot.

"This was absolutely at the heart of the matter for us," said Francis Baron, the RFU's chief executive. "We wanted to establish the principle of RFU money going towards those clubs who are working to the benefit of English rugby at representative level."

Rob Andrew, the elite rugby director who was employed by Twickenham to undo the Gordian knot into which the RFU and the clubs had tied themselves and whose stock has risen considerably with the conclusion of the talks, will play an influential role in player management. If a club's medics disagree with the England specialists on whether a player is fit to perform, Andrew could find himself making the final decision. Similarly, he might have the last say on when a player undergoes surgery.

This is one area of potential conflict, and there may also be some fallings-out over another of the more contentious issues contained in the agreement: the right of the national coaching team to drop an individual from the England squad should his club refuse to play him in a certain position. Mathew Tait, who turned in such a striking performance in last month's World Cup final, might be a case in point. When this deal kicks in next summer, the England hierarchy may well identify him as a full-back. If Newcastle continue to pick him at centre, he could, theoretically, lose his place in the elite.

For the time being, though, everything in the garden is rosy. "This is an English solution for the English game – a deal that takes the best of what we've achieved over the last 10 years while taking into account the things we've learned," Andrew said.

The Gloucester chairman, Tom Walkinshaw, the clubs' principal negotiator and a tough one at that, said: "We couldn't afford another band-aid agreement; we needed a once-and-for-all agreement. An enormous amount of effort has gone into this, and no stone has been left unturned. There were many low points during these talks but when the thing was stripped right down it was clear we had to work together. There is an overwhelming desire to make this happen."

Brave new world: How elite English rugby will be run

* A new Professional Game Board of 12 delegates, headed by a chairman appointed by the Rugby Football Union, will administer the top end of the sport in England.

* The 12 Guinness Premiership teams will receive more than £110m of new RFU money over eight years in return for the release of representative players at agreed stages during the season.

* Most of that cash will go directly to clubs providing England-qualified players.

* New medical protocols have been agreed. Rob Andrew, the RFU's elite rugby director, will have the final say in disputes over player fitness.

* Automatic promotion and relegation between the Premiership and National League One, subject to agreed criteria, enshrined until 2016.

* Players may be dropped from the Test squad if their clubs refuse to pick them in positions nominated by the national coaching panel.