The southern hemisphere's Super 14 competition could be expanded after officials revealed they were looking at the possibility of admitting additional teams from a variety of countries.
The alliance of South Africa, New Zealand and Australian (SANZAR) rugby unions will explore the potential of including the Pacific island nations, Argentina, Japan, the United States and Canada in Super rugby.
All three SANZAR unions had previously been against the inclusion of countries such as Fiji, Samoa and Argentina.
But with the growing number of leading New Zealand players accepting lucrative contracts in Europe and thus becoming ineligible to play for the All Blacks, New Zealand officials along with their Australian and South African counterparts, have undergone a change of heart.
‘We're identifying the fact that the rugby economy in the northern hemisphere is posing a real serious threat to what's happening to our countries,’ New Zealand Rugby Union chief executive Steve Tew said.
‘We've made a very strong commitment to work together on a very tight timeline to come up with some options in future and in that regard we'll be talking face-to-face with the Japanese, the Canadians, the US, the Argentinians and the Pacific Islanders to try to progress throughout the next four to six months.’
The announcement came after SANZAR officials met while attending an International Rugby Board meeting in Dublin.
Tew added: ‘We are sort of recognising publicly if you like, that SANZAR's got some work to do to ensure that its competitions are the best in the world.’
Since last year's World Cup in France, All Blacks Anton Oliver (Toulon), Carl Hayman (Newcastle), Doug Howlett (Munster), Luke McAlister (Sale) and Aaron Mauger (Leicester) have moved north, while Daniel Carter is the subject of a bidding war, with Toulouse favourites to secure the star fly-half’s services.
