The row over European rugby clubs offering incentives to Pacific players to stop them from representing their countries in test matches is escalating.

The latest reports suggest the International Rugby Board (IRB) is considering amnesty for European clubs that have broken the rules, in exchange for a guarantee that their actions won’t be repeated.

However, FORU President, Harry Shuster believes offending clubs cannot be trusted and IRB’s inaction with such issues could ‘kill’ Pacific rugby.

Shuster says smaller unions in particular rely on the laws being enforced across the board equally irrespective of the union.

The current IRB rules states that during the test players should be made available so the international teams have their best players playing for them in the ranking test match.

While smaller unions hope changes will be made, Shuster says the reality is, it’s a big problem that they have very little control of and being a small union, they don’t have money to spend on suing some unions to enforce the law.