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WALLABIES and Waratahs star Bernard Foley has signed a two-year deal to play in Japan after the World Cup but is set to also represent Australia in sevens at the Rio Olympics.
In a major development on the eve of the Super Rugby season, The Daily Telegraph understands Foley has put pen to paper with a top Japanese club and will join them in November after the Wallabies' World Cup campaign.
It is a blow for Australian and NSW rugby but talks with the ARU are understood to be advanced for Foley to not be entirely lost next year.
Foley is negotiating a short-term deal to play for the Australian sevens team at the Olympic Games in Brazil in August, and in the lead-up tournaments.
Bernard Foley is set to play in Japan after the World Cup. Source: Getty Images
The 18-cap Wallaby five-eighth is believed to be then eyeing off a return to Australia in 2017 and a second World Cup in 2019.
The departure of a star player so early in his career will still ring alarm bells in Australian rugby as a Wallaby player drain to cashed-up foreign clubs emerges as a vexing issue.
Foley is in his prime at 25, and famously kicked the winning goal for NSW to win the Super Rugby title last season. He is expected to be Australia's Test No. 10 at the World Cup.
Sources said the ARU, Michael Cheika and Ewen McKenzie before him have worked on engineering a flexible outcome to ensure Foley isn't lost for good.
A former Australian sevens captain, Foley has long held ambition to go to the Olympic Games. And the ARU, which is desperate to unlock government funding with success in Rio, and sevens coach Geraint John were only too happy to make it happen.
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There seems to be a growing acceptance that names like Israel Folau and Michael Hooper are unwilling to give up a whole Super Rugby season to play in Rio, but Foley would be a recruit with both profile and a proven sevens background. He played at the 2010 Commonwealth Games and was called back into the sevens team in 2013 for the World Cup.
Henry Speight and rising Wallaby rookie Sean McMahon are also names linked to Rio.
Though similar in appearance, Foley's deal is not officially one of the "flexible contracts" announced by the ARU in August last year which allow stars to play overseas for one season if they sign a long-term deal with the ARU at the same time.
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But a hidden detail in the fine print of what was dubbed the "Izzy clause" was the provision for a player to go to the sevens in Rio and then play in the Japanese 2016-17 competition and still be eligible for the Wallabies in 2017. The Top 14 season runs from August to March.
Foley has not yet committed to returning to Australia in 2017. The Waratahs, too, have not given up the fight and are still pushing for Foley to be allowed to play Super Rugby in 2016.
Sources say the ARU is willing to accommodate Foley's two-season Japanese move not only for the Olympic sevens implications and to encourage his return, but to allow Foley to bank a big Japanese payday and effectively only miss one year in Australia.
Foley said last month he was open to an overseas move.
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