Sale director of rugby Steve Diamond says the club have been cleared of any wrongdoing in their handling of a coronavirus outbreak last month.

The Rugby Football Union and Public Health England North West have been investigating the Premiership club, where there were 27 positive cases.

It led to Sale having to forfeit their final game of the 2019-20 campaign and miss out on the play-offs.

The RFU's review into the club is due to officially conclude this week.

"I'm delighted with the decision that we've been exonerated," said Diamond.

"There was a natural spike in the region and put that together with we were given a false negative, they would have been contributory factors to the outbreak.

"What happened to us could have happened to anybody. It happened to Wasps to a lesser extent and it's recently happened to Leicester. We were the first and we were victims because we had a chance to go into the top four."

Sale repeatedly denied reports players and staff had broken any guidelines and protocols, labelling claims players had gone out partying and socialising in Manchester following their Premiership Rugby Cup victory over Harlequins on 21 September as "completely inaccurate and untrue".

In a press conference previewing the start of the 2020-21 Premiership campaign, Diamond said he was "a bit disappointed" in comments on the issue made by Bristol boss Pat Lam, Worcester director of rugby Alan Solomons and former England wing Ugo Monye.

"[They] all jumped in on these false allegations that we were partying in the inner city and the student areas of Manchester which was a real poor thing to say with no evidence and obviously it was factually incorrect," added Diamond.