THE SCOTSMAN REPORTS
DUNCAN SMITH ([email protected])
EDINBURGH owner Bob Carruthers insisted yesterday there would be no traumatic redundancy announcements at the club, but confirmed that his international players are free to explore the possibility of alternative employment.

Carruthers' dispute with the Scottish Rugby Union over what he claims to be several hundred thousand pounds of unpaid Heineken Cup and Magners League revenue, which exploded into a bitter public spat last week, continued to escalate over the weekend as the Fife businessman announced his intention to make severe cuts to his elite playing staff. Speaking to our sister newspaper, Scotland On Sunday, Carruthers said he was encouraging his elite international players to leave what he called "the mire" at Edinburgh as the financial disagreement with the SRU appears set for a lengthy legal battle.

Carruthers told The Scotsman yesterday: "We are a company like any other, with obligations and financial restraints. But we will never announce redundancies. What we've said to our guys is 'if you've got something else in the pipeline then go for it'.

"These are highly employable guys and it's not like the Motorola people getting laid off at Bathgate."

Carruthers was unhappy with warnings issued by SRU chief executive Gordon McKie in another Sunday newspaper. "The way their contracts are written he can't just release them," said McKie. "Most of them would be entitled to a year's salary at least. He's just trying to hold them to ransom with these threats, but he can't just ignore employment law."

These comments received a forthright response from the Edinburgh owner. "For a start Gordon McKie should not be talking about what is or what isn't in somebody's contract," Carruthers said. "But he is wrong and he is misleading people. It is not right that he should be leading these guys to expect a year's salary. McKie should be very careful.

"Employment law is clear on redundancy, one week for every year's service. Would the office managers get a year's salary? No one gets that. It is very wrong to make comments like this, raising people's hopes."

With the dispute in a state of impasse and litigation, according to Carruthers, "possibly three or four weeks away", the Edinburgh owner was asked to contemplate what, when the dust settles, the worst-case scenario would be. "That would be if McKie follows through on his threat and withdraws the funding," he replied.

"That would leave us with a not-too-thrilling side - a development team with maybe 12 club players and three professionals."

Such a scenario would be a massive comedown from the ambitious talk which has emanated from Edinburgh since the takeover last July, culminating in the ground-breaking deal to bring Australia stand-off Stephen Larkham to Scotland. Would the consortium wish to continue on such a low-key basis?

"We would ride the blows and carry on," insisted Carruthers. "It is our club. We bought it. He [McKie] sold it to us. I keep seeing it described as a franchise but it's not. The agreement was very clear.

"McKie made it obvious in April that he wants control of Edinburgh back. He would love us to walk away. But we won't. We are still excited by what Edinburgh could be. It's not the vision we started with, but there's not a lot we can do about that due to the threats that have been levelled at us."

Carruthers laughed off the circulating theories that this stand-off is merely a way to engineer his way out of the deal with the SRU.

"There is no need for me to engineer anything," he said. "People keep asking me 'is this a clever exit strategy?' and I find it funny. I could hand in the keys tomorrow, shut up shop and sue them [the SRU]. I've no obligation to stay on, but it's our team, we own it. It's no fun dealing with threats to people's livelihoods. We've already seen the Borders shut down. At least here there is a way to preserve 35 to 40 jobs."

This article was posted on 9-Jul-2007, 07:09 by Hugh Barrow.