The Scottish Rugby Executive Board held their monthly meeting at Murrayfield today, with the future of the three professional teams the main issue on the agenda, but no firm conclusions could be made at this stage.

For the past two months, Scottish Rugby has been in dialogue with several potential joint venture partners for one or more of its three professional teams. With a £23 million core debt to address, it was recognised there needed to be significant external funding introduced if the three teams, Border Reivers, Edinburgh Gunners and Glasgow Warriors were all to continue.

The Board carefully considered the various joint venture proposals, which are still at different stages of development. Recognising the complex situation, the Board fully supported Scottish Rugby Chief Executive Gordon McKie in his task of progressing matters to a final stage in the next two to three weeks.

Allan Munro, Scottish Rugby Chairman said: “This is a critical time for Scottish Rugby and it’s no exaggeration to say the future funding of our professional teams is a serious concern. Failing to address this debt is not an option but we simply cannot continue to run three professional teams without joint investors or other external sources of revenues. Gordon is exploring all serious offers and we sincerely hope the end result is the continued existence of the three pro teams.”

McKie is on record as saying if suitable terms cannot be agreed and opportunities do not materialise then, despite recent notable successes at international level, Scottish Rugby will have no alternative but to further reduce the existing investment in pro-team rugby before the start of next season. Emerging from the Board meeting McKie commented: “We are at a very sensitive stage in our talks with potential investment partners and whilst I recognise timing is getting very tight, the Board were agreed that we are following the right course of action.”

This article was posted on 22-Jun-2006, 18:58 by Hugh Barrow.