The SRU chief executive Mark Dodson does not look or sound like the sort of character who needs a comfort blanket. Yet in outgoing deputy Dominic McKay, who departs Murrayfield on Friday to take the reins at Celtic, Dodson has had the ultimate wingman: someone willing to try to steer him away from the worst excesses of his own bullish nature, and who picks up so much of the day-to-day executive workload that it has often been difficult to determine exactly what the main man does, other than turn up for the odd photocall or court case.
Although it is Dodson’s name above the door, a vast array of departments fall under McKay’s chief operating officer remit, from all commercial, ticketing, stadium and retail operations to relations with the Six Nations, EPCR and Pro14 via responsibility for Edinburgh and Glasgow Warriors and the union’s marketing and communications wings.
McKay had also led on relations with local and national government, a critical component in the past 13 months of Covid-smashed income streams. McKay did extremely well to unlock £15 million of grants and £5 million in low-interest loans from Holyrood, and also played a central role in the negotiations that ended with CVC Capital Partners agreeing vast deals for a share of the Six Nations and Pro14 commercial rights.
Only last week, BT renewed their naming rights partnership for Murrayfield, while the car retailer Peter Vardy was brought on board as the new shirt sponsor of the men’s national team. McKay leaves the SRU finances in as strong a position as could realistically be hoped for in the present climate, and will surely watch from afar with interest as to how that position is now managed.
If the soon-to-be Celtic chief executive will be missed at the negotiating table, it is the absence of his stabilising voice in the boardroom which the wider Scottish rugby community should be more concerned about.
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Dodson is a man who loves to get his own way, even when it is patently obvious to those with a passing grasp of employment law, or indeed empathy, that things are being done in the wrong way.
The Keith Russell tribunal, executive pay debacle and ham-fisted introduction of Super 6 and Agenda 3 are but three examples of situations when Dodson’s ego was allowed to run amok, pushing aside all checks and balances en route to inflicting severe damage to a mix of the union’s reputation and finances.
McKay was also in the frame for all these sorry snapshots but there could easily have been many more down the years had he not been around to raise an objection, or at least an eyebrow. It is devilishly difficult to determine who may now fulfil such a role. The last thing a man of Dodson’s self-assurance and occasional pig-headedness requires is carte blanche to wield unfettered power, but trying to rein in such figures takes courage and conviction.
Is there someone on the SRU board with thus-far unannounced powers of persuasion? Someone ready to risk the boss’s wrath if they know something is worth fighting for? Or are we left with a team of enablers more suited to complimenting the emperor on his sartorial nous?
The indications are that McKay’s brief will be split between several individuals, but whether that little group comes from within, from outside, or a mixture of the two, it is crucial that they help to hold Dodson to account. McKay will be taking a whole lot more than business acumen with him when he walks out the Famous Grouse gates for the final time on Friday.
