Adding South Africa to Six Nations would be a crushing blow to developing European sides

Rugby's version of Storm Eunice was calmed by a statement from Six Nations Rugby yesterday.

After a Daily Mail exclusive claimed the game’s most historic tournament was considering jettisoning Italy for South Africa a hurricane of outraged opinion ripped through social media.

The official response was as swift as an emergency COBRA meeting: “Six Nations Rugby, comprising the six Unions and Federations and CVC, wish to confirm that they are not entertaining any discussion nor developing any plans to add or replace any participating Union,” said the statement.

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A storm in a teacup? Or back peddling after seeing the furore that meddling with the Six Nations might provoke? We’ll never know for now but what is certain is the strength of feeling among fans where rugby’s oldest contest is concerned.

But do supporters really have a voice in a world where money talks loudest? And private equity firm CVC £365m stake in the Six Nations doesn’t just talk, it bellows.

Views on CVC’s grip on sport range from its potential to transform rugby into a money-making machine, delivering NFL and NBA-style global pay-offs, to the perception that this is rugby’s ultimate Faustian pact with the very soul of the game at stake.

Motor racing’s experience is the deal with the devil example used to support the claim that CVC extract more from sport than they put in. They got a return of more than 350 per cent on their investment in F1 but those who invest their hearts in motorsport – the fans – were distraught that viewing figures were said to have fallen 137 million globally in recent years.

And many of those who love the Six Nations were similarly distressed at the prospect of shafting the