SLOUGH Rugby Club have been punished by the Rugby Football Union (RFU) for jointly fixing the result of a match – leaving two members of staff suspended from the sport and the county club deducted 25 points.

It has emerged that after a scheduled away match to Chipping Norton on February 6, which was actually called off due to bad weather, the coaches of both teams hatched an agreement with the referee to instead record a 24-24 draw.

The consequences of the scandal mean that Slough are now third from bottom in the Berks Bucks & Oxon Premier League of county rugby, and under threat of relegation, with only a single match to play.

However they will avoid relegation if they pick up a single point.

Slough head coach, Darran Brown, and first team manager, Paul Bryant, have both been respectively suspended.

Brown has been suspended from coaching at any level of the game for 20 weeks for "conduct prejudicial to the interests of the Union and/or the Game, and failing to act with the utmost good faith".

Meanwhile Bryant, who acted as a club official on the match day, has been suspended for 14 weeks from any involvement in the administration of the game.

The RFU said in a statement: "Each RFU Club is responsible for ensuring that information provided on a Match Result Card is accurate. The provision of false or misleading information is a serious breach of RFU Regulation."

The club were found to have breached RFU regulations and were charged with the provision of false or misleading information on the official match card.

Chipping Norton head coach Andy Dawson was also punished under the same provisions while the match referee, Rob Hawkins, was suspended from refereeing at any level of the game for 20 weeks.

Slough Rugby Club said it was ‘very disappointed’ with what had happened and will conduct a further internal investigation.

A statement from the club read: “It is very disappointing and the individuals involved regret the decision. Everyone knows it was a very clear error in judgement and we are not going to dispute it in any way.

Both clubs had been awarded the points for a draw and try bonus, as a result of the fix. Brown has already served over a month of his suspension having been removed from his coaching post by the club’s internal process held on February 24.