THE SCOTSMAN REPORTS

Burgess claims his pro team plan could have come to rescue of SRU
DAVID FERGUSON ([email protected])
A PRIVATE investor turned away by the Scottish Rugby Union last summer has revealed he put together a plan to put all three professional teams into private hands, which he claims would have saved the Borders from the axe this week.

Graham Burgess, the 53-year-old ex-Leith Accies player and now oil millionaire from Aberdeen, joined up with another investor, Roy Carver, a 36-year-old US millionaire who still plays the game. They brought Kenny Logan, the former Scotland internationalist, on board and the trio spent much of 2005 and 2006 formulating plans to take over a professional team.

However, they were knocked back by the SRU executive board who said they did not believe the group had presented credible plans to make a franchise work. Surprisingly, after rapid negotiations, they handed over Edinburgh last June to Bob and Alex Carruthers, the crucial difference likely to have been the fact Burgess wanted £1.2m from the union, and the Carruthers almost half of that.

Any doubts over whether Burgess' consortium had the money they said they did should have been dispelled immediately - Burgess owns the Sovereign Oil Fields Group, which the stock exchange quotes as being worth £35m, with an expected turnover this year of £100m, while Carver is from the famous Roy J Carver remould tyre family, worth in excess of £500m.

Burgess last year admitted the SRU's reluctance had merely ensured he did not lose money, but yesterday he told The Scotsman: "The last year has been pretty hard to watch. I'm a supporter of Scottish rugby and enjoy watching the teams, from club to international level, and all I see now is Scottish rugby falling into a deeper and deeper hole. And we hear the CEO and president saying they had run out of alternatives; that they simply had to close a team. Did they try and contact my group, say they wanted to re-assess our plans? Not a word. Have they run out of alternatives? In a short-sighted kind of way, maybe they have. But it p***** me off to watch our game in such a huge downward spiral when I know it doesn't have to be this way."

Burgess recounted the time and effort he spent on the project over the past few years after Phil Anderton, the former chief executive, first sent out the flares asking for private investment in the game. Burgess attended matches in the Super 14, French league and English Premiership and, with Carver and Logan, met officials of clubs in an effort to understand what made them tick.

"With that kind of research and advice, Roy, Kenny and myself then built our own model and looked at the real costs of running a team in Scotland," said Burgess. "We put that at £3.2m per annum and then tried to work out where that might come from. The priority clearly was having your own stadium, and the control, because the challenge for us was to build it up as an 'experience' and make pro rugby attractive for people to come to watch.

"Roy and myself were committed to putting in £2.5m each - Roy could buy the SRU tomorrow if he wanted, so money was not an issue. But the more we talked the more other investors came to us to get involved, so our plan became a model for all three teams.

"We eventually cut down the SRU's input to £1.2m, which, at £3.6m in total, would have cut their expenditure on pro rugby by at least £1m and made them profitable.

"That would have given us a couple of years to get the businesses up and running, and then we could look at reducing the SRU's input, so they could spend more on the club game in Scotland, or open a fourth team. I even had an unbelievable quality of MD lined up who, because we were knocked back, is still driving forward a top club down south."

Though he was sorry to read of this week's decision, he admitted: "That was because it was another blow for Scottish rugby rather than because the Borders went. I feel for the Borders, but I couldn't run a pro team there; it's untenable, the same as it is at Murrayfield and where Glasgow are right now. It's interesting the SRU are considering using my plan for Stirling, and I hope they do. I've done the research and there are clear reasons why clubs like Worcester, Leicester or Sale are profitable and it starts with a good stadium you own."

When asked if he would contemplate fresh interest from the SRU, Burgess sighed and said: "The passion for the game never goes away. If the SRU really did want to make professional rugby work I would sit down again and see if we could make it work.

"But what also gets me is they are doing little for clubs in this country. That's where the real development of players happens. We have a team of players who can compete at the highest level, but below that we're going nowhere. It needn't be that way. There are people like me wanting to help and it is worrying that the SRU would rather shut teams down than speak to us."

• The Famous Grouse, shirt sponsors of the national side, have still not agreed a deal to replace the current three-year agreement which runs out on 31 May. The famous whisky brand has been contributing seven-figure sums to the union, having grown a relationship which started in November, 1990.

The Scotsman understands that the SRU have sounded out potential new sponsors were The Famous Grouse to withdraw. Tara Kildare, sponsorship manager for The Famous Grouse, remains hopeful that a new deal will be struck. She said: "It is always a possibility during such negotiations that the relationship will come to an end, but these things take time."

This article was posted on 31-Mar-2007, 07:27 by Hugh Barrow.