THE civil war within Scottish Rugby Union, combined with losses on high profile events, drove the game in Scotland into another year of financial losses, it emerged at the annual general meeting last night.
The loss includes a total of £850,000 for the cost of the various people who left over the course of the year, including a single £250,000 pay-off to Phil Anderton, the former chief executive.
But in an unusual move, the present remuneration committee, chaired by Alan Munro, one of the non-executive directors, has queried the working of their predecessors, noting that there were only limited minutes, none relating to the appointment of several senior executives. There was no record that the letter entitling Anderton to his pay-off had been discussed and they have asked a lawyer to investigate the circumstances.
In his report, Fred McLeod, the interim chairman and chief executive, notes that before interest payments on the union’s overdraft, grants to clubs and the organisation costs, the SRU would have made a tiny profit compared with a £6.9 million loss the year before.
The meeting was important because it signalled the change in the way the union is being run from the old system that provoked that civil war and all the divisions that led to it. As from last night, Scottish rugby is now run by a new executive board supervised by a new rugby council.
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In other issues, the meeting was dominated by the debate over restructuring the domestic leagues with the working party chaired by John Jeffrey, the former Scotland flanker and now manager of the Under-21 team, winning overwhelming support. Next season three clubs will be relegated from the BT Premiership Division One and only one promoted from the second division so as to reduce the top division from 12 clubs to ten. The remaining league structure is almost untouched as the members rejected calls for a more radical reform.
The debate hinged on the call from the Marr club for most clubs to be moved into regional leagues to cut down on travel costs and produce more derbies to stimulate more local interest. Against this, however, speakers believed that some regional leagues would be too weak to sustain a decent level of competition and this was the argument that own the day.
In a continuation of the reforms, the members unanimously passed the latest working party report which calls for the old five districts to be removed and replaced with a three-region structure.