Steele, a former Royal Artillery officer who had coached Northampton Saints to victory in the Heineken Cup in 2000, had only joined the RFU last September having been recruited from UK Sport, where he had also been chief excutive.

But he has paid the price for the chaotic series of events last month involving Sir Clive, the coach of England's World Cup winning team in 2003, who had been widely tipped to take-up the newly created role but decided to stay with the British Olympic Association, where he is the elite performance director. 

RFU chiefs were furious when Steele changed the job description for the post, stripping the role of any responsibility for England's senior Test team.

That move was seen as a deliberate snub to Sir Clive, making the position less attractive to the World Cup-winner and other high-profile candidates.

But that was followed by another U-turn, where the initial terms of the job were re-instated, possibly clearing the way for Sir Clive to return to the organisation he resigned from amid acrimony in 2004.

Steele's exit followed an late-night extraordinary board meeting the previous day.

"The Rugby Football Union Board of Directors can confirm that John Steele has left the Union with immediate effect," a statement from the RFU said.

"At the current time there is nothing more we can add while discussions are ongoing and we will update further as we are able."

Since his appointment, Steele had overseen sweeping changes to the organisation's structure aimed at preparing to host the 2015 World Cup.

One of the key changes was to scrap Rob Andrew's role as director of elite rugby and moving him to a new, more administrative role, while also creating the still vacant performance director role.

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