Premier League club at centre of huge new

After Mike Tindall's plans to revolutionise rugby took a significant step forward, proposals for another breakaway league have emerged, with two Premier League football club owners behind the ambitious project.

With Tindall seeking to spark "generational change" in the 15-a-side game through his rebel league R360 - which will see players play around the world for one of 12 new franchises in an 'F1-style' fixture calendar - the game of rugby as we know it is already set to be transformed next year.

However, the former England centre isn't the only one aiming to shake up the established order in the coming months, with the emergence of another new venture - spearheaded by the owners of Sunderland AFC - this time concentrating on rugby sevens.

Ultimate Sevens is a project being led by BIA Sports Group (BSG), a firm owned by Kyril Louis-Dreyfus and Juan Sartori, who assumed full control of the Black Cats in 2023 and guided them back to the Premier League last season. The pair also own other sporting assets, including the World Supercross Championship, but have now shifted their focus to rugby sevens.

BSG's chief executive Tom Burwell describes himself as a "disruptor by nature" and sides with Tindall in believing that rugby is "ripe for disruption", claiming that what got the game to where it is now "is not what is going to get it to the next level" and a wider audience needs to be found.

Similar to R360's proposals, BSG plans to establish seven men's and seven women's Sevens teams, all operating under seven individual franchise owners, with players contracted to the league before being allocated to specific teams via a draft.

The competition is scheduled to kick off in August next year, featuring seven rounds of fixtures across seven weeks in seven European capitals: London, Dublin, Paris, Amsterdam, Munich, Rome and Barcelona. While the current World Rugby Sevens Series sees each round take place over three days, Ultimate Sevens would feature knockout tournaments completed within four-hour slots on Thursday evenings.

Looking to capitalise on financial difficulties and uncertainty within the existing rugby sevens structure, Burwell and BSG aim to get "more eyeballs" on the short-form game and are confident they can replicate their achievements with Sunderland in the oval-ball game.

"We see ourselves as complementary to the existing Sevens ecosystem," Burwell told Mail Sport's Rugby Confidential. "The World Series has created an incredible opportunity in terms of the Olympics. It's important rugby stays an Olympic sport. However, the contrast to that is the World Series is not built for the modern consumption of sport. It's three days long.

"Rugby invented a short form version of its game before other sports did. But the irony is it takes longer than the full version of the sport to complete, and that is a problem. We need to create something that will bring fans back into consuming the sport with the best athletes in the world participating and it needs to get back to its short version of two to four hours."

Burwell, who has been involved in rugby sevens for the past 20 years, claims that Ultimate Sevens already boasts "an eight-figure valuation" and is confident that with the organisation's "rock solid funding", the venture can entice the world's finest sevens players.

United States Women sensation Ilona Maher, who secured bronze for her nation in the sevens at last year's Paris Olympics, is a major target for the new breakaway project, as is France talisman Antoine Dupont, who claimed gold with the host nation at last summer's Games.

"We're educated investors," said Burwell. "We know what we're doing and we're taking this seriously. Our funding is rock solid. We want to provide a window for franchise rugby Sevens with the best players in the world.

"We've built into our system the ability for a franchise owner to invest in a wildcard player outside of the draft system. It could have enormous marketing impact. But we want to use the best Sevens players in the world.

"Ilona Maher is a superstar created by Sevens. She's the biggest rugby star in the world judging by modern metrics. Dupont had a huge impact on the Paris Olympics. But don't forget, he came off the bench in the final and didn't make the starting team," he added.

"At the moment, the World Series has teams not competing due to funding issues. If I can come in and fund those players to be on year-round contracts that don't impact the World Series, the sport as a whole is stronger."