The bitter dispute between Scottish Rugby and the professional club in Edinburgh seems certain to end in the courts after the union yesterday dismissed calls for mediation or arbitration.

The club immediately responded by raising the stakes in the fight by revealing that their writ would accuse the union of providing inaccurate and misleading financial information during the negotiations leading up to the sale of the club from the SRU last season and that the total amount they were now seeking would run “well into seven figures”.

The union had earlier made it clear that the main reason it was not prepared to enter talks on the dispute was a total breakdown in trust with the people running the club after a further batch of leaks from the club at the end of last week and over the weekend.

“Scottish Rugby takes very seriously any failure to abide by confidentiality agreements in regard to contracts and correspondence and believes the resulting publicity was very unhelpful,” the union said in a statement.

It went on to re-emphasise that as far as its officials are concerned the union has done everything demanded of it in the contract it signed with Edinburgh almost exactly a year ago.

The club replied within the hour, expressing its disappointment that the “win-win situation” of mediation was not being taken up and emphasised the damage that was being caused to the game by this dispute.

Their statement went on to confirm that legal action is now less than a fortnight away. “To set the record straight, the claim being prepared is for the recuperation of shortfalls in payment due from the SRU to Edinburgh Rugby, failure by the SRU to comply with its contractual obligations and also in respect of a breach of warranty,” the club’s statement read.

It went on to detail the alleged financial irregularities and say that a leading firm of accountants was being called in to audit the figures that had been provided to the club during negotiations.

In previous statements, the club have only ever talked about recovering a six-figure sum that they claim they should have been paid last November, but was withheld by the union to cover costs it claimed it had incurred.

Now that the dispute has escalated to include the complete financial package, there seems to be no way back from the brink and both sides have now hired leading, expensive lawyers to fight their cases, each convinced that they are completely in the right.

The club added that litigation should always be the last resort but felt they had been left with no option. “It is an unfortunate irony that the SRU’s failure to agree to private mediation will result in public scrutiny of all the contracts before the court,” their statement said. “Edinburgh Rugby welcomes all scrutiny.

“Edinburgh Rugby understands that no members of the Scottish Rugby Council, and only a few members of the SRU board, have seen the agreements between Edinburgh Rugby and SRU which are the subject of the dispute.

“Edinburgh Rugby calls upon the Scottish Rugby Council to review the position of the SRU executive, and persuade them to go to mediation in the interests of rugby in Scotland.”