South Africa, who agreed to cut two franchises, is facing similar turmoil, with the Cheetahs and Kings also fighting threats of extinction.
"The time frame issue, there's so many moving parts to this. You don't actually know where the resolution is going to end up," Cheika said on Fox Sports' Super Rugby: Kick and Chase program.
"So I think there's still to make a broad range of decisions on and we'll just see what happens with that."
Asked what message he had to players' families caught up in the saga, Cheika said intriguingly "there's no guarantees" any team will be axed.
"We know in Australia that there's a general attrition of somewhere between 10 or 15 per cent of players in any year," he said.
"They either go overseas, retire, etc, etc, and we think that not too many of our players who are currently in the system would miss out if that happens - (a franchise is cut).
"And I'll say 'if' that happens because there's no guarantee that that's going to happen." Cheika's words of hope would seem cold comfort to Rebels captain Nic Stirzaker, who has again called for the ARU to make a call for the sake of all those suffering.
"It's definitely having an impact," Stirzaker said.
"But it's not just players, it's staff as well.
"The uniqueness of our situation is that we were sort of given guarantees that we had a future in Super Rugby and then almost weekly there'd be a new rumour that we didn't and then maybe we do.
"So that rollercoaster spread a lot of anxiety and inability for guys to plan for their lives, which I really feel for them and the whole group.
"There's a lot of us in the group who have knocked back opportunities overseas or elsewhere with the belief that the club's going to be around and now we're not so sure.
"All those things create a lot of stress for the guys, guys that have had just had families, just had babies or have kids at new schools, or don't know whether they can sign a new lease."
