Western Force or Melbourne Rebels will be cut from Super Rugby when the competition reverts to a 15-team, three-conference format in 2018, with Australian Rugby Union chairman Cameron Clyne confirming the decision will be made within 48-72 hours after consultation with the franchises.
SANZAAR's announcement of the competition restructure on Sunday followed a month of stakeholder consultation after the Executive Committee had formed a consensus view on Super Rugby returning to a 15-team format at its March meeting in London, but Clyne said on Monday that "the decision to remove a Super Rugby team from Australia was a decision made by the ARU, not by SANZAAR".
"This outcome however was only made possible by a consensus vote by the four SANZAAR partners and has been a complex process involving the many stakeholders in the competition across the globe," Clyne said. "This process was finally completed [on Sunday]. We are also very grateful to our broadcast partner Fox Sports, which has been steadfast in its support of the ARU through this process and since the inception of Super Rugby in 1996.
Clyne said the ARU had made its decision to cut the Force or the Rebels because "Super Rugby has placed an increasingly heavy burden on the ARU business in recent years and the acceleration of revenue declines in our Super Rugby businesses has placed the game under extreme financial pressure".
"The additional funding provided by the ARU to offset Super Rugby losses has severely limited our capacity to invest further in our grassroots and high performance areas such as player and coach development," he said.
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Clyne said the ARU, "at the request of the Board ... completed an exhaustive analysis on three of our teams: the Brumbies, Western Force and Melbourne Rebels".
"The purpose of the analysis was to assess each of those teams on their financial sustainability, high performance and commercial factors, examining a range of metrics, with a view to identifying which of those three teams to remove from the competition.
"After reviewing management's findings, the board made the decision to eliminate the Brumbies from the process and identified that consultation is required with both the Western Force and Melbourne Rebels to further understand their financial position.
Clyne said "recent performance trends" showed that Australia did "not currently have the playing depth ... to service five teams in Super Rugby".
"Performance declines by our teams since the expansion of Super Rugby has had a direct correlation with declines in revenue across their businesses."