Directors of York Rugby League Club today moved to quash reports of a boardroom split.
The Wasps board have not held a meeting for six weeks and sources close to the club claimed that two distinct factions have emerged at director level.
The Evening Press understands that moves to undermine the position of coach Dean Robinson are at the centre of the split.
Chairman Trevor Cox today gave his "100 per cent backing" to Robinson and declared that anyone questioning his position was failing to act in the club's best interests.
Cox added that a board meeting was expected to be held tonight to discuss the split speculation.
"It is an ordinary board meeting but in view of what has been suggested I will be asking the board for their views. I will be asking them to state their position and hope they confirm that they are fully supportive of the coach," he said. "The coach has my 100 per cent backing and anyone who is seeking to undermine the coach at this stage is not acting in the best interests of York Rugby League Club.
"With the club second in the league and pressing for promotion it would be arrant stupidity to undermine the coach. No director has said to me that he feels we have got the wrong coach. I think Dean has done an excellent job."
Long-serving player Lea Tichener has been indefinitely suspended from the club for undisclosed disciplinary reasons.
While Tichener and Robinson declined to comment, a source at the club claimed the prop forward was suspended "due to his involvement with certain directors in trying to undermine the club's best interests".
Said Cox: "If the coach feels it right to suspend any player for any reason he has my 100 per cent backing. I do not involve myself in team selection."
The chairman also played down reports of warring boardroom factions, adding: "I do not know about any split."
Vice-chairman John Waddington and RFL council representative Pete Warters, meanwhile, also dismissed reports of deep disagreements with Cox and chief executive Phil Elliott.
Warters claimed his only "gripe" was a lack of communication by way of board meetings.
"We have had one board meeting in two months. It is just a fact that it is no good Trevor and I sitting down and nobody being there," said Warters, a former York player.
"If we cannot get four people together at the same time we cannot have a meeting. I have been banging the table about having a meeting, but that is the gripe I have got. I liken it to the Marie Celeste. If we have no crew on board, we don't know what it happening. All I get to know is what I read in the paper.
"You cannot have a split if you have not had a barney and you cannot have a barney if you have not seen each other. All I want is a successful team and the stadium with a couple of thousand people in it."
Waddington, meanwhile, added: "There is no split as far as I know. I have not heard anything. As far as I knew on Sunday everybody was quite happy. It is true we have not a meeting for a while but that is because I am in London and Phil is all over the place. If there is upset at the club it is the first I have heard about it. There are niggles, of course there are, but it is not serious."
Former Hunslet Hawk Paul White, who has been training with the Wasps for a month, has now signed for a month's trial and will be on the bench at Doncaster on Sunday.
Castleford Tigers utility back Jamie Benn has also returned to the club on loan for a month.
Benn was recalled by the Tigers in response to a Wheldon Road injury crisis after figuring in the Wasps defeat of Oldham on May 24.
However, coach Stuart Raper has agreed to allow the 19-year-old to return to the Wasps.
Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.
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