THE SCOTSMAN REPORTS

Clubs discuss SRU refusal to mediate
DAVID FERGUSON
CHIEF RUGBY WRITER ([email protected])
THE SRU's refusal to seek mediation in its dispute with Edinburgh has raised fears within the club game that an expensive legal dispute could impact dramatically at grassroots level.

Perthshire RFC are canvassing the views of fellow clubs as the row between the governing body and the professional side threatens to go to court.

On Tuesday, the SRU formally turned down the offer of mediation made last week by Bob Carruthers, Edinburgh's main shareholder, provoking the latter to announce writs would be served inside the next fortnight. Carruthers appealed for clubs and the Scottish Rugby Council - the new body of elected volunteers created to maintain clubs' interests in, and question, the executive Scottish Rugby Board - to demand greater openness from the SRU over the dispute, stressing that he would prefer mediation to a legal battle.

Jerry Saunders, Perthshire's membership secretary, and Bob Lindsay are the representatives on the Division Three Forum and, this week, they sent an email to other clubs for their views.

Saunders explained: "As a club, we are hugely focused in the local community. We're not terribly interested in professional rugby - yes, it can be good for our better younger players, and, if it can generate an income for grassroots development, then we support it - but we have a huge commitment to a development programme across the whole county, delivering rugby to over 4,500 girls and boys, linking with other clubs, and with 40 volunteer coaches, who we help through the SRU courses.

"We need to raise a lot of money to fund all of that - about £50,000 a year just for the development programme - and anything that is going to put that at risk is a concern. We are very grateful the SRU is supporting clubs in some way and we need every penny they give us, but our worry is, if the SRU have to pay substantial litigation costs, where will the money come from? The SRU accounts show no cash reserves or assets they could liquidise to settle lawyers' fees. So, we are conducting this straw poll to see which other P3 clubs share our views."

He added: "We are members of the SRU and are very supportive of the union, and the governance structure we have.

"We agree that it is for the board to decide if mediation is the route they take or not, because they represent us. But our feeling is that mediation sounds like a cheaper way of sorting out this dispute than trying to defend litigation, and, if there is overwhelming agreement from the clubs, I would expect that Bob Hogarth, who chairs our forum now, would take our concerns to the council and they would take it to the board."

Perthshire was recently praised by SRU chief executive Gordon McKie and former president Andy Irvine, as a model of how rugby in Scotland can be grown. Perthshire have nurtured an enviable youth development scheme around the city, with ambitious sponsorship and commerce and community links. The first XV has also risen through the ranks to Division Three of the Premiership.

The SRU maintains that it has an effective strategy which will end this dispute without the need for the kind of compromise sought by mediation, but only a small number of people within Murrayfield appear to be privy to that plan.

Meanwhile, with the new season fast approaching, the rest of Scottish rugby waits - Edinburgh draw up writs, clubs strive to attract new sponsors, autumn Test ticket sales trundle forward, Glasgow season-ticket holders grow desperate for their briefs and the SRU wait to hear how much money they will receive from ERC, having cut from three to two teams - hoping that the sport's governing body knows what it is doing and can bring an end to the increasingly damaging conflict very soon.

This article was posted on 20-Jul-2007, 07:23 by Hugh Barrow.