The deepening crisis in relations between the Scottish Rugby Union (SRU) and Edinburgh took another downward twist yesterday when the club resigned from the union and were immediately told they had effectively thrown themselves out of every competition they had entered.
The SRU’s interpretation of the rules was fiercely rejected by Bob Carruthers, the club’s owner, but he also said that unless there is a settlement in the increasingly acrimonious row, he was prepared effectively to close the club until the matter can be sorted out in the courts, which could take up to two years.
He says that, in these circumstances, if players under contract get offers to play elsewhere, the club will not prevent them leaving. One immediate result was a renewal of interest in Chris Paterson from Perpignan, the French club, and it looks as though the man who led Scotland through the RBS Six Nations Championship in the spring has played his last game for Edinburgh. Stephen Larkham’s move to the club is now also uncertain. The Australia fly half was due to join Edinburgh after the World Cup in November, but Jason Macarthur, his agent, said: “I expect to be in discussions within the next 24 to 48 hours. Until then I don’t know how this impacts on Stephen’s deal.”
If there was any doubt that Carruthers is so convinced that he is in the right that he is prepared to turn Edinburgh into a rugby wasteland while he fights for his rights, it was laid to rest when he hired Richard Keen, QC, one of the most high-profile lawyers in Scotland.
The Edinburgh owner has previously said that he is prepared to make players redundant and to run the club with a limited budget and 30 noninternational players. “We want to be Barcelona, but we are prepared to be Stirling Albion if that is what it takes,” he said. Yesterday, he added that if the union persisted in its attempt to ban the club, he was prepared to cut back to only a couple of token employees while they fought the case in the courts.
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With both sides in the dispute taking increasingly entrenched positions and the union rejecting offers to take the quarrel to independent arbitration, or to set up an elite squad and pay international players directly, the argument could spill over the border to affect other European clubs who expect to face Edinburgh in the Magners League and Heineken Cup.
The core of the argument is financial. Carruthers says that the union failed to pay £400,000 that was due last November and though it later paid some money, it is still £186,000 in arrears. The union says that it has paid Edinburgh everything that is legally due to the club.
There are a host of other points of dispute, including how much money should be paid to Edinburgh next season if they take part in the Celtic and European competitions. Carruthers says that the participation fees should be split evenly between however many clubs Scotland enters in to the events; the SRU says that Edinburgh agreed to receive a fixed amount and the rest, about two thirds, will go to Glasgow.
As things stand, it may take a judge to decide whether Edinburgh get to play at all. The club already face disciplinary action that has the potential to leave them suspended after World Cup squad players were ordered to train with their club rather than country.
After the club resigned as an associate member of the union yesterday, the SRU reacted by putting out a statement saying “under IRB Regulations, no club or team that is a member of any Rugby Union and in membership of the IRB is now permitted to play against Edinburgh Rugby”. It also said that without membership, the club’s insurance for players had lapsed.
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Carruthers disputes both points. “All we have done is revert to the status we held at the start of last season when we played four matches without being members of the SRU,” he said.