A Guest Post From A Club Official

CLUBFAN – he is a senior official at what I would term a mid-level Scottish club - is one of the more-regular contributor to the below the line comments section of this blog.

He contacted me after my last but one blog post – the one headed (Right - Breathe, Then Decide Where We Go Next), and, having done this, he submitted the following response – which I am happy to publish in full and without comment.

"Governance is about who gets the biggest shout, not about how the game is organised" - the two are inextricably linked. The fundamental fact of this case is: “It is the member clubs who are the Union.” It is through the Trust that the members own the assets.

The hired help - yes that is rather derogatory but that's what they are, - are there to run the business. Scottish Rugby is a private company not some stock market entity where the Executive and Board can basically do what they want when approved by the shareholders.

What Dunlop never envisaged was a rogue (my word) executive driving through changes to suit their own agenda, and a Board and Council letting them. Its a bit like the US President getting one over on the House and Senate and them both rolling over and letting him.

The big difference being the President is elected. I've stated before - there are only two classes of membership in the SRU - full members and associates. Whether a club aspires to move up the leagues or wants to develop the rugby community is irrelevant - both clubs have the same vote.

You nicely illustrate the conflict of interest though - how do our Super6 colleagues remove their Super hats when they are in their National 1 meeting? They don't! They have been voting as a block and blocking things for some time.

Ultimately this is about the allocation of resources. If these pathfinder organisations get access to "soft loans" who is paying for that? Given someone is funding the interest of the soft loan - likely from SR funds which means less funds for other members.

If we have an open and honest debate about that and the members agree to that - all well and good. But we aren't having that debate. We are not even debating the merit in extending S6 to 8 or 10 or 12! If we can't populate six teams with enough players where do we think another two teams are going to come from?

To your point about fixture postponement - the critical issue is getting people to play rugby rather than further enhancing the top end of the game. Heres a question for you - who has the bigger player pool - Scottish Rugby or Scottish Cricket? Without a strong base we are doomed.

Sure the suits at Murrayfield won't care in the short term. They would love to get rid of us. But where do the future Hoggs, Grays and Grahams come from? The idea that Super rugby will be the saviour of the Scottish game is just so much wishful thinking it doesn't even merit a response.

Yes Scottish Rugby is seemingly awash with cash. But Murrayfield needs serious money spent on upkeep and upgrading. That £5M stadium didn't get conjured up from no where. Pro rugby is an insatiable beast and there will be further upward pressure on costs there.

Extending Super rugby will be more cash, "soft loans" to these purported pathfinders. Creating facilities for women and girls will cost a pretty penny - I could go on. There is never a shortage of places to spend money.

One of the things that stuck with me from the SRU AGM was Mark Dodsons comment "disposing of Super6 would be commercial suicide". Let's test that.

What are the commercial realities of Super6? We know that Scottish Rugby is putting in £400K per year and the teams a similar amount. Little information is available on the finances of the companies running the Super6 sides. The info that is available doesn't paint a great picture.

How much is being generated by the media deals? How many tickets are complimentary and how many are being paid for? If its such a rip roaring success as was made out at the AGM, surely Murrayfield would be wise to share this information with members to show juts how successful its all being?

Finally of course S6 players are making it into the Pros - its the only game in town. This isn't some either or scenario. Full and open debate on these issues and reaching agreement of the members is key.

Imposing things from on-high never works.

That's what Clubfan thinks, and while I agree with many of his points, we also have our differences of opinion.

So, he has had his say, now, I am looking for other views – would somebody from an S6 club like to give me his take on matters for instance? Does anyone else have an opinion which they may think is valid.

The usual rules apply:

I am aware of Clubfan's identity. If you want to comment – I need to know you are kosher, a piece signed by nome de plume, unless backed-up by a genuine name and contact number (which will not be published) will not see the light of day.

And be nice, gratuitous insults will also disbar.

Come on Scottish Rugby. Let's have a genuine debate here. We need to do this.