There's disappointment among the rugby community that next year's Super Rugby competition won't include a Pacific Island franchise.
New Zealand Rugby have confirmed the 2021 competition will run with just the same five New Zealand teams as this year, with the addition of a one-off final.
The same five teams will contest Super Rugby Aotearoa next year. Photo: Photosport Ltd 2020
The NZR chair, Brent Impey, said none of the Pacific team bids were both competitive on the field and financially sustainable off the field.
"We are not in a position financially - we're running multi-million dollar losses - to subsidise anything, " he said.
"If we've got money it needs to go into our community, it needs to go into our provinces, so I'm sorry we do not have the money to compromise."
Brent Impey. Photo: Photosport Ltd 2018
Pacific Rugby Players has worked alongside half a dozen prospective bids and chief executive Aayden Clarke felt they would have added something to next year's Super Rugby competition.
"From a players perspective it's pretty disappointing - we just hope now that the following year, 2022, we can get a plan in place and get a team out on the field," he said.
"There was a Fiji-led group, there was the Moana Pasifika group out of Auckland and a number of others who were really ticking some boxes."
Pacific Rugby Players CEO Aayden Clarke. Photo: RNZ Pacific/Vinnie Wylie
Putting together a competitive playing roster at short notice was especially tough in the current environment, Clarke acknowledged.
"Nobody wants a hotch-potch team to take the field and want them to be competitive from the start, we understand that," he said.
"But we did think that was possible in 2021 and I know that all organisations who have been working on this have been getting good financial sustainability in behind them to ensure that it's a long-term success."
A Fijian team is among those keen to join Super Rugby. Photo: Supplied/Fiji Rugby
He also dismissed concerns over a lack of player depth.
"Outside of the current New Zealand contracted players there's some very talented Pacific Island players playing through the Mitre 10 Cup," he said.
"Plus by early next year we would hope that possibly the Pacific Island players who are on island at the moment could have an opportunity to be part of it as well."
Aayden Clarke speaks to RNZ's Midday Report