The Sunday Herald reports
The end game
By Alisdair Reid
Bob Carruthers and Scottish rugby will soon part company
Comment
IF THE most understandable reaction to the latest flurry in the long-running battle between Bob Carruthers and the SRU was to down a swift half of hemlock, then those who managed to resist the temptation might take some comfort from the growing impression that the spat is moving rapidly towards its endgame. The issue at stake now is not the future of Edinburgh Rugby as such, rather the terms on which Carruthers will take his leave of the club.

So while both sides continue to spout numbers that purport to measure their respective grievances, claims and counter-claims against each other, the only figure that matters is the one required to lever Carruthers out of Murrayfield. In his bellicose and circumlocutory manner, Carruthers has requested a handsome golden handshake. Union chief executive Gordon McKie would rather see him off the premises with a gilt-edged kick up the backside.

Indeed, when Mckie responded to Carruthers' claim for £1.3 million with a demand for £1.4m, it was clear the SRU were not simply matching their tormentor's ball-park figure, but giving as good as they got in terms of belligerence as well.

advertisementCarruthers suggests that £1.3m represents the sum he has put into the side, but McKie dismisses the figure with contempt. "I would say that a relatively modest sum has gone in from his side," said the chief executive. "Very modest compared to what we put in. How that sum compares to the £1.3m that he's asking for is impossible to see, so I can't get my mind round his arithmetic. We simply don't recognise £1.3m as being his investment in Edinburgh."

In the poker-game atmosphere that has enveloped the dispute, McKie's own figure of £1.4m represented a defiant match-you-and-raise-you manoeuvre. In which light, the fact he also told Carruthers that Edinburgh had lost the right to train and play at Murrayfield amounted to a kicking away of his opponent's chair. Any sympathy one might be tempted to feel for Carruthers should be tempered by the fact that the music and broadcasting entrepreneur is believed to be examining his options from his luxury retreat in the Caribbean.

That the numbers tabled by the two parties differ by just £100,000 indicates the most likely resolution to the conflict. Asked if he would accept a call-it-quits offer from Carruthers, a divorce with no payment due from either party, McKie was initially cautious, but warmed to the theme.

"We remain desperately keen to resolve this as quickly as possible and reach an agreement without recourse to the Court of Session," he said. "We're trying to be sensible. We would like to bring this to an end without going through a court process that would be time-consuming, costly and damaging to the sport."

Would he accept a get- out-for-nowt offer from Carruthers? "If it brings it to an end, if Bob wants to go away for nowt, then we'd be happy for that to happen," said McKie.

It is a deal that ought to appeal to Carruthers, whose warlike stance has failed to obscure the fact that the desertion in droves of Edinburgh players and staff has left him with more of a battered platoon than a fighting-fit army. Granted, it lacks the labyrinthine complexity he favours and can be explained without recourse to rhetorical gymnastics, but if he can cope with those minor inconveniences then the light has appeared at the end of the tunnel.

The one fly in the ointment is that Carruthers still owns the rights to promote concerts and other entertainment at the stadium. SRU sources have been keen to spin the line that Carruthers has had problems financing the side due to his failure to attract big-name acts, but McKie conceded the two elements of the business are quite distinct from each other.

"Strictly speaking they're separate matters, handled by separate companies and with separate agreements in place. Pragmatically, however, it would be hard to see one surviving without the other because it was anticipated that the concerts would generate the money to run the team."

In fact, that assertion does not stack up. Carruthers could quite easily continue to hold the concert rights at the stadium, freed as he would be of the costs and bother of running a rugby team. Yet relations between the two parties have descended to a point where it is almost inconceivable there could be a business relationship between them. The likeliest conclusion may involve the SRU buying back those rights, a settlement that would allow Carruthers to claim a victory of some sort.

The residue of the affair is that Edinburgh will have been drastically denuded, with a raft of top players set to leave the club. Carruthers had been reluctant to offer a refuge to players affected by the closure of the Border Reivers, a number of whom have been moved to Glasgow. Cleaning up the mess will almost certainly see some redeployed to Edinburgh.

McKie will be happy to leave that aspect of the operation to Scotland coach Frank Hadden. What, though, of the future of professional rugby in Scotland? What prospect now, after such a messy marriage, of private investment in the future?

"Being realistic, we would probably want to pause for breath now, and try and get Glasgow right," McKie said. "It wouldn't make sense to bounce Edinburgh from one investor to another. The players need stability now, a bit of tender loving care.

"If others are interested in the principle of investing, and they have the means, then I think they will still come forward.

"If they want to talk to us about what has happened with Edinburgh then we can quickly reassure them that we do not go into contracts and then not honour them. We don't spin and lie and deceive."

This article was posted on 5-Aug-2007, 07:38 by Hugh Barrow.