Premiership Rugby chief executive Mark McCafferty has revealed a world club championship could be introduced within the next five years.
McCafferty has long championed the idea of pitching the best from the European club game against the champions from the Southern Hemisphere.
Altering the season structure to accommodate such an event is the biggest hurdle - but McCafferty believes a showdown between the best clubs and regions in the world is almost an inevitability.
"The national championship is something to treasure and Europe is very successful," he said.
"Ideally we would like to bolt on top of that an international club event, something that answers the question 'who is top dog?'
"Is it the Crusaders? Is it the Bulls? Is it Toulouse, Leinster or Saracens?
"That would be such a compelling event that sooner or later it will have to happen because people would love to see it.
"Club rugby at its best now is every bit as entertaining and enthralling, if not more so, than international rugby.
"Season structure is the biggest issue. We have had plenty of indications from our partners and from a TV point of view it would work.
"It won't happen before 2015, before the World Cup. There is a possibility it might happen after 2015. It is a matter of the stars coming into alignment to make something possible."
While England and the Rugby Football Union have endured a turbulent last 12 months, the club game is in rude health. The 2000th Aviva Premiership fixture will be played on Sunday, when Saracens tackle Bath.
Attendances since the World Cup are up 7 percent on last year and Harlequins sold a world record 82,000 tickets for their Premiership game against Saracens on December 27.
McCafferty joined the organisation in 2005 and is proud of how far the club game has developed since the Premiership made its debut in 1997.
"In 15 years, professional club rugby has come an awful long way from the early days when people doubted whether it had any sort of future at all," McCafferty said.
"We do genuinely feel club rugby is where there is phenomenal potential growth over the next 10-15 years."
Premiership Rugby's path to the 2000th game has been far from smooth.
When the game turned professional in 1995, the Rugby Football Union dithered and lost the opportunity to contract their leading players centrally, precipitating a period of conflict between Twickenham and the professional clubs.
There are still flare-ups, as occurred during the World Cup, but McCafferty is confident the RFU now accept they have the best of both worlds and that the English business model will end up being adopted by Australia and New Zealand.
"As I understand it, within the next five years all the Australian Super 15 teams will have private investment. New Zealand are looking at private investment because everyone understands their model is just not sustainable," McCafferty said.
"The RFU turn over 135million pounds a year and invest only 10 percent of that into Premiership Rugby. In Australia and New Zealand, 40-50 percent of their revenues go into supporting the professional game.
"The consequence of that is you have less money to invest in the community game. The RFU have got the best of both worlds."
McCafferty is looking forward to working with the RFU's new chief executive Ian Ritchie, following the often tempestuous relationship with the now-departed Martyn Thomas.
The RFU and Premiership Rugby