WORCESTER Warriors promotion to the Premiership may be hanging in the balance following claims that their application to play in the top flight next season arrived too late.

Speculation was mounting today that the board of England Rugby Limited could yet scupper their hopes of joining the country's elite.

Rotherham, after being de-nied promotion to the Premiership two seasons ago, are furious that Worcester could be allowed in despite an issue over paperwork.

And while the South Yorkshire club are not represented on that board (which is made up of five officials from the RFU and five representatives from within the Premiership), there is a feeling that Worcester may yet have another hurdle to clear.

A meeting of the 10-man board will take place on Tuesday to decide on the National One champions' fate.

Worcester's chairman Cecil Duckworth, however, remains unmoved by the speculation and believes the board of England Rugby would find it tough to backtrack after initially giving Worcester the thumbs up.

"We have it in writing that promotion would be granted subject to planning permission being attained," said Duckworth.

"We now have the planning permission. There was also a highways issue over parking but we have satisfied that concern now and we hope to receive confirmation of that today. There are no issues with our ground, we have some of the finest facilities in the country.

"I have spoken to the RFU chief executive Francis Baron today and he assures me that if all our paperwork is in order, there isn't an issue. We expect to get the green light from highways today so there is no problem with our paperwork."

The key issue could be as to whether Worcester failed to meet a deadline. The original deadline for the paperwork to be completed was Febuary 28 and then extended to March 31. However, a new planning application -- for Worcester's temporary East Stand -- was not received by Wychavon District Council until April 8 and that could be a problem for the Warriors.

"Rotherham are kicking up a fuss but it's just pathetic," added Duckworth. "We already had the capacity in place within the deadline but we submitted a new plan because we changed the design of the stand."