Premiership Rugby final could be staged away from Twickenham after 2024

The Premiership Rugby chief executive, Simon Massie-Taylor, believes England’s top flight must be “open-minded” about staging the final away from Twickenham as they seek to turn the showpiece event into a national sporting moment on a par with the Grand National.

Twickenham has held every Premiership final since the playoffs were introduced to determine the league’s winner in 2003 and will stage Saturday’s showdown between Saracens and Leicester. Under the terms of the Professional Game Agreement with the Rugby Football Union, Premiership Rugby is contractually obliged to stage its final at Twickenham but that deal is due to expire in 2024 with renegotiations set to begin this summer.

Massie-Taylor has also revealed that Premiership Rugby is considering adopting a double-header model for its semi-finals, which would see both matches staged in the same stadium, citing the success of France’s Top 14, which will hold both fixtures in Nice this weekend. The Top 14 traditionally holds its final at the Stade de France but nearly 100,000 spectators watched Racing 92 beat Toulon in the 2016 final at Camp Nou in Barcelona while the 2024 final is set to be staged in Marseille.

“We’re contractually obliged to stage [the final] at Twickenham but I think we need to have an open mind going forward in the next PGA,” he said. “Should we be doing things like neutral semi-finals? Again, trying to [replicate] these bigger moments that certainly exist in other countries.

“I think we can do it and it’s not necessarily a case of, ‘everything is at Twickenham’. I think there’s a national footprint here and you need to think about the Brightons and the Leeds and various other areas. We just need to work out where the demand is and how quickly