Steve Phillips admitted there was no guarantee all four of Wales' professional sides would survive rugby's current economic downturn.
The Welsh Rugby Union chief executive made it clear the WRU's aim is to retain four professional sides.
But he pointed to the situation in English rugby where Wasps and Worcester Warriors went to the wall in recent months.
In Wales there is currently a freeze on offering players new contracts with the WRU and regions having been at loggerheads in recent months although both parties have now verbally agreed a new six-year funding framework.
"I can't guarantee that because I can't control the economics of the country," said Phillips, when asked if he could give assurances Wales wouldn't drop to three sides.
"We've always stated that the ambition is to have four but we'd be naive not to look at what's happened across the Bridge.
"That was a wake-up call for everybody frankly and nobody more so than the RFU. When all that was happening I was in New Zealand with the RFU CEO.
"They probably didn't see that happening either. It's a message for us all.
"I can't guarantee anything because there's all sorts of reasons why I can't without boring you to death about them.
"But our ambition is definitely, and this is what we said in our six-year verbal agreement, we are starting with four and we hope to stay at four."
Phillips also confirmed new head coach Warren Gatland could extend his contract to the 2027 Rugby World Cup in Australia in an upstairs role.
“I don’t get into too much detail into individual contracts but we have an arrangement where there are options for him to continue," said Phillips. "He needs to be happy with that and we need to see performances and so forth.
“So it has the ability to go out until World Cup 2027 and we have things built in to see if Warren is enjoying it, are we still getting the results when we get that far.”
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