THE SCOTSMAN REPORTS
DAVID FERGUSON
([email protected])
GORDON McKie confirmed yesterday that he has been in talks for the past six months with a business consortium which has offered to buy Glasgow.

The Scotsman uncovered this information and presented it to the SRU chief executive at a planned media briefing yesterday afternoon and McKie confirmed that he had been to London to meet the consortium, which is based in the English capital.

He said: \"Yes, there was interest there about two or three months ago. It appeared genuine. An indicative offer was made to invest in the Glasgow team provided it stayed in Glasgow.

\"The money is not [yet] there and the group we are talking to have gone quiet.

\"What we have seen so far was not a full business plan, but more of an ideas document. We believe they were serious, but we didn\'t get too far.

\"I\'ve met this group a couple of times and phoned them regularly, met them in London as well, but there\'s a saying that you can lead the horse to drink the water, but if he doesn\'t want to come, he doesn\'t want to come.\"

While McKie\'s board have achieved little in reducing costs since taking over nearly two years ago, there is no denying the healthier state of the SRU\'s financial organisation and McKie yesterday opened his conference by going back to the independent review into the SRU\'s finances instigated by the Bank of Scotland in 2005, by way of highlighting how he has managed to ease the pressures from the bank. That, however, is not in question.

What is under the spotlight is not just the union\'s sense of priorities at this juncture and the value placed on professional rugby, but also the SRU\'s ability to bring in outside investment. Last year McKie turned away an offer from Graham Burgess and Roy Carver to take Glasgow to Stirling and run it as a franchised team.

They initially wanted Edinburgh, were persuaded instead to focus on Glasgow and then had their bid turned down, either because the SRU decided it did not want to give up control once it handed Edinburgh to the Carruthers brothers, because it required just over £1m from the union and/or because they wanted to shift the team to Stirling.

McKie has never fully explained his reasons, but, ironically, the SRU have now gone to Stirling council and investigated the possibility of moving Glasgow to Forthbank next season.

Now, however, it emerges that there was another offer, first made six months ago, by a group of Scottish businessmen, some of whom are based in London.

The Scotsman understands that the consortium have been keen to progress talks quicker and were dismayed by the decision to close the Borders.

The two parties spoke as recently as six weeks ago and the consortium are believed to be waiting for requested details from McKie.

It is further understood that they impressed McKie with their figures, but the chief executive admitted yesterday that handing over control - even if it meant saving the Borders, and leaving it as the union\'s sole pro team - was too big an issue.

When asked if he was happier with just two professional teams next season rather than three, with Glasgow and Edinburgh owned privately, McKie said: \"I think it\'s fair to say we would not be readily willing to give away control of Glasgow, given that we\'ve recently closed the Borders and the issues at Edinburgh. As much as it would be nice to get money in, to have no pro teams we control [in the belief that the Borders has already gone] would be a tad too far.

\"Had we been able to raise funding into Glasgow then conceivably that might have saved the Borders, but we know that absent of that funding we couldn\'t do both.

\"We were running out of runway with regard to time because what had to be done had to be done by March. We have been looking for an investor for 12-18 months of my time and so far we\'ve converted one.

\"If this group had come up with the money and shown sufficient commitment to get the deal done, then that might have been the saving of the Borders, but it\'s speculation - he didn\'t want to engage and give us a business plan and there\'s comes a time when you have to make decisions.\"

There is some light emanating from London, however, with McKie revealing yesterday that he has approached the RFU about launching a professional team in the English capital.

Asked about the prospect of a team based in the south, he revealed: \"We did receive an approach from [another] group of businessmen down there, to install a team into London. We have raised that matter formally with our Celtic cousins, Wales and Ireland, at chief executive level.

\"They support the notion in principle, subject to the detail being understood, and as a consequence of that we have now raised the matter formally with the RFU to seek their permission to establish one way or other some sort of team in the south-east which might participate in the Magners League.

\"It\'s very early days. I mention it because there are rumours flying around that we might have a team down there next season; I think that would be extremely ambitious in the scheme of things.

\"We anticipate that the RFU will review the matter at their next management board meeting, scheduled I believe for later this month.

\"The RFU would not be drawn [on the chances of a Scottish team being accepted] because they have major issues of their own right now, but we can now talk to one another.

\"They have a situation regarding their own long-form agreement, which expires in two years, so even if we can derive some interim agreement that might help.\"

The chief executive also pointed to the recent improvements of the Scotland under-17, under-18 and under-19 teams in national competitions as evidence of the improvement in the academy system invested in last season.

This, McKie insisted, was an example of the wider investment he was driving and the need to reduce spending on professional teams.

He added: \"We are a governing body. Our duty is to promote, develop and govern the game of rugby in Scotland.

\"That does not mean we have a duty to invest in a pro team in the Borders, any more than we have a duty to invest in women\'s rugby, or a duty to invest in pathways.

\"Do we take from the club game to give to the pro game? Do we take from the pathways or under-age teams to give to the pro game?

\"The board took the decision that we\'re better to give more to the one team to give it a chance and invest other money in other ways to help rugby in Scotland.\"

There is not much wrong with that, only there still remains no evidence emanating from Murrayfield of plans as to how exactly Glasgow will be strengthened, how the Borders\' development to the top level will remain and whether, crucially, professional rugby has a future in Scotland.

The world according to union\'s top man
GORDON McKie yesterday appeared in front of the media to explain the SRU\'s thinking on a wide variety of hotly-debated recent issues. Here, we provide explanations and answers he provided on some of those topics currently concerning the rugby world in Scotland.

EDINBURGH

\"I\'m both surprised and disappointed to read that whereas threats of legal action were being issued willy-nilly that actual legal action is about to commence. We have a contract with Edinburgh and we are abiding by the terms of that contract.

\"I would say that since we did the deal we\'ve spent many, many man hours, days and weeks trying to help Edinburgh Rugby with their financial affairs. Admittedly, I\'ve not met the management of Edinburgh Rugby [since October] because I\'ve delegated that to Eamon and Graham Ireland, from our finance division.

\"I do take my hat off to the marketing Edinburgh have done; it has been very prominent and pro-active. I have to say it has cost a lot of money and there have been many shapes and forms to it, but the proof of the pudding is that the average attendance is no greater than what it was last year. That\'s quite remarkable when so much has been spent on marketing.

\"The reason I say that is to demonstrate that professional rugby in Scotland, including our teams, has not taken off. You can market all you want, but until people want to buy the product it\'s difficult to sell it.\"

SWITCHING IRB 7S FROM MELROSE TO MURRAYFIELD

\"I have read a lot lately about us stealing the event from Melrose; that we\'ve brought it to Murrayfield to profit from it. That\'s complete nonsense.

\"There is no question of us profiteering from an IRB sevens event at Murrayfield. These things cost a lot of money to stage. The reason it\'s here is because to build a stadium [temporary stand] in Melrose would cost a lot of money which we don\'t have - that was what swung it into the red. Maybe there would be a way round for next year, maybe with more terracing and less seats.

\"I\'m personally saddened that it\'s not at Melrose, but I can\'t justify the risk of spending £500,00 of our clubs\' money to give a good feel to a Borders stadium for a two-day event; everyone agreed at the time it wouldn\'t pay.\"

On the IRB Sevens plans for Murrayfield, he added: \"We have sold about 4,000 tickets I think over the two days; I\'m not sure. You might say \'that won\'t fill Murrayfield and you\'re right\'. But we\'re not concerned because in the next week or so we\'re going to start building awareness - we didn\'t want to promote it too soon - and it is priced so cheaply that a lot of people will walk up on the day.

\"I am very confident we won\'t lose more than £500,000 - we\'re trying to get it as close to break-even as possible. The ticket revenue in our projection is about £140,000 - about 10,000 people on the first day and 14,000 on the second day.\"

GLASGOW

\"They are looking forward to next season and I\'m hopeful we\'ll start announcing new signings next week, both from within and from outwith [Scotland]. They will not all be Scottish; we will seek to strengthen the squad and increase the size of the squad to cope with the rigours of professional rugby.

\"We will be advertising, I hope, tomorrow for a new chief executive. We do want the Warriors to be more autonomous and empowered to run itself with a proper board. I would say that individual will have a strong commercial and marketing background; I know a number of people feel we could have done better in our marketing activity. There is some element of truth in that and we will empower the Glasgow chief executive to be responsible for both. As for playing locations in the west we still have a number of options available to us both for next season and couple of seasons beyond and we\'re in discussions also about the longer-term.\"

This article was posted on 20-Apr-2007, 07:09 by Hugh Barrow.