The South African Rugby Union wants its teams who have joined the Pro 14 to compete in Europe in the coming seasons.

The Cheetahs and the Southern Kings linked up with the three Celtic unions and Italy after losing their places in Super Rugby, with the South African Rugby Union signing them up for an initial six years. If one of them wins the league this season, though, there will be no European Champions Cup place.

“I think our teams playing in Europe will be a natural process that will take two or three years, but for the moment we are focusing on the Pro 14 and making its enlargement a success,” said the SA Rugby chief executive, Jurie Roux. “If our teams do well in the league, the Champions Cup would be the next step.

“That is a debate for another day. We are excited to be joining the Pro 14 and making history for the game in South Africa. It will be a different experience for our players and it was important that we had a long-term agreement to give everything time to settle. It will allow us to look at it on an annual basis and make revisions if necessary. The Pro 14 made no secret of its desire to expand and we are delighted to be at the table.”

The tournament, which was launched in Dublin on Wednesday, is being split into two seven-team conferences, which will each contain two sides from Wales and Ireland and one from Scotland, Italy and South Africa. The teams in the same conference will face each other home and away and play sides from the other grouping once. There will be two extra derby matches and those who have two fixtures in South Africa will play them back-to-back.

“Travelling will be done overnight and there is no time-zone problem,” said the Pro 14’s chief executive, Martin Anayi. “Player welfare has been a major factor in our planning and teams flying to and from South Africa will have at least a seven-day turnaround.

“I see the South Africa teams in Europe as a natural progression. They will need to be competitive in our leagues and I think they will be. We need to give the Kings time because they are a new team but I envisage us at some point going to the shareholders of the Champions Cup and saying Europe should widen its horizons.”

Playing in Europe would raise the question of whether South Africa would look to hitch itself to Europe and leave the southern-hemisphere’s Sanzaar, to which it is contracted until 2020. Roux, while admitting that South Africa felt shackled by the body that runs the Rugby Championship and Super Rugby, does not see the Springboks applying to join the Six Nations but conceded that joining the Pro 14 gave his organisation options.