THE SCOTSMAN REPORTS

SRU forced to admit defeat in bid to find backing for Glasgow
DAVID FERGUSON

THE Scottish Rugby Union may have to rethink the decision to turn down an offer of several million pounds for one of the professional teams after businessmen striving to find backers for Glasgow admitted defeat.

Brian Simmers, the former Glasgow and Scotland player, and ex-SRU chairman David Mackay had scoured the west coast and further afield in a bid to put together a consortium which could follow Bob and Alex Carruthers' lead and take the pro team off the SRU's hands.
But, despite meetings with influential, cash-rich businessmen, the pair have informed Gordon McKie, the SRU chief executive, that no-one was prepared to support their plan to franchise Glasgow Warriors.

Simmers told The Scotsman: "It is a big disappointment, but we tried very hard, and had positive meetings, but couldn't find anyone prepared to invest the kind of money needed to make a professional team work.

"David and myself were confident about how we could make it work, but we needed significant investment. There is a nervousness about investing in the game after the problems we've had in the last ten years. I think that if we'd tried to do it a decade ago, with the buzz around rugby turning professional, we'd have succeeded.

"It is sad and it is hard to see where pro rugby goes now. The only way ahead, I feel, is for the SRU to scrap the Borders team, invest more in Glasgow to make the team more successful on the pitch, with an independent board, and try to have two successful sides feeding into the international team."

The SRU did yesterday appoint Charles Shaw, the former Greenock RFC president and marketing chief in the drinks industry - and member of last year's governance working party - as chairman of a new Glasgow Board, with strong SRU involvement. But Simmers had tried to unearth a businessman like those who have turned the Guinness Premiership into a vibrant and commercially successful competition - Andrew Brownsword at Bath, Nigel Wray at Saracens, Northampton's Keith Barwell, or Brian Kennedy, the Scots entrepreneur who revitalised Sale.

History may be repeating itself as one does exist, but appears unpopular with the SRU. Nearly a decade ago, the union rebuffed several attempts by Kennedy to buy into Scottish rugby, questioning whether he had the means he claimed to and suggesting he might ruin the game if given control. Frustrated, he looked south, bought Sale and they are now English champions.

Intriguingly, he is now on the executive board, yet still they have turned down the offer of more than £5 million over five years from Graham Burgess, the Aberdeen-based oil businessman, and US entrepreneur Roy Carver, who had Kenny Logan, the former Scotland Test star, as their commercial manager. Burgess would reopen discussions with the SRU, were the union to agree to inject over £1 million per year into his franchise, but insisted that his team would only have a chance if sited in a small stadium in which he had seven-day-a-week access.

He said: "We came into the project in good faith, and would have taken over Edinburgh, Glasgow or the Borders. We were serious. The business plan we presented came after detailed discussions with Niels de Vos, Brian Kennedy's chief executive at Sale, and Kennedy himself, and a lot of fact-finding trips to clubs across the UK, France and the southern hemisphere.

"Pro rugby in Scotland is not going to be a great commercial success, but we felt the passion we had for the game and the desire to prove that, with a lot of hard work, good commercial sense and new ideas, it could work here, would give it a chance."

The major stumbling block in the Burgess plan appeared to be his desire to set up in Stirling, which was unpopular with Glasgow supporters and the executive board. But Logan stated yesterday that the collapse of the Simmers/Mackay project underlined that pro rugby would not work in Scotland's largest city.

He said: "We didn't want to move Glasgow just for the sake of it. It wasn't a personal or emotional thing - it was a rugby business decision. I know a lot of people who have been interested in investing in pro rugby in Scotland - including one who spoke with Simmers and Mackay - but pro rugby struggles in cities with big football clubs.

"Moving a team to its own community, where rugby can dominate - Stirling was a possibility because Central Region has about 300,000 people and around 150,000 within ten miles of Forthbank Stadium - is the key. The Borders has the passion and no big football teams, but you need bigger populations."

He added: "I believe pro rugby, done properly, located wisely, learning lessons from England and elsewhere, could work in Scotland. The toughest bit was always getting investors, but Graham has done that so you tell me why the SRU won't give us a chance. I have no idea."

This article was posted on 5-Oct-2006, 07:30 by Hugh Barrow.