London Welsh lost their appeal against a five-point deduction for fielding an ineligible player, the Rugby Football Union disciplinary panel announced.
The English Premiership club were hit with a five-point deduction and a STG15,000 ($A22,000) fine after it was revealed their New Zealand-born scrum-half Tyson Keats had played in 10 matches without being registered correctly.
It leaves them five points adrift at the bottom of the Premiership and in danger of an immediate return to the second tier.
The panel decided the STG15,000 fine and five-point deduction will remain, but removed a further five-point penalty that was suspended until next season.
“We have to mark this serious breach with a points deduction,” said panel chairman and barrister Gareth Rees.
“We must acknowledge the impact on the integrity of the game.”
Mike Scott, the former London Welsh team manager, had been banned for life from rugby after he admitted supplying false information, including a forged passport, to England’s governing Rugby Football Union (RFU).
Scott had told Keats’ agent and London Welsh that the player had been granted an ancestry visa by virtue of his paternal grandfather, who was born in England.
This should have meant London Welsh received English Qualified Player payments from the RFU, due to Keats being available for selection to the national squad.
However, Keats had not been granted a visa. Scott, having asked Keats to sign a blank form, then submitted falsified documents to the RFU.
It claimed Keats had been born in Christchurch, England, as opposed to Christchurch, New Zealand, and held a UK passport.
When the RFU made further inquiries regarding Keats’ registration, Scott sent a forged UK passport to Twickenham.
However, despite Scott – who suddenly went on sick leave in December emailing the club to tell them he had made ‘an almighty mess’ – being solely responsible for the offence, the panel, which acknowledged “exceptional circumstances” in the case, found that Welsh had benefited for too long from being able to select Keats.
