Great news!

The villagists will be greeting

Wonderful news - congratulations!

Brilliant! Let's see our players' contracts signed NOW please!!

"While we remain committed to seeking external investment for our professional teams, we must also look to create a more stable environment in which they can operate."

Do the SRU finally conclude now that no-one's interested in taking over the franchising a pro side with so much continued SRU involvement in it?

Wonder where the SRU found the money to pay for the next three years?

Some questions..........

How much Fred??
Is it going to be sweety money or are the budgets going to be realistic?
Another point, as glasgow are performing better than Edinburgh and the Borders, will we get a larger budget than the other two pro teams, cause Edinburgh got that advantage for this season??

I don't anderstand why, Scotland can't have a "mixture".
SRU should provide the money from the governement into the general structures for the game.
And have an agreement for picking players for the test games.
Without having the power and control about the pro sides.
Pro sides could have sponsors, and money from private investors, towns and regions.

Is there a lot of difference with France about the structures??

MAYBE GOOD NEWS FOR PRO TEAMS BAD NEWS FOR THE REST
THE CLUB GAMEIS IN SERIOUS DIFFICULTIES--RING FENCE FINANCE-EASY WHEN YOU ARE RING FENCING NOTHING--WHERE WILL THE NEXT GENERATION OF PRO PLAYERS COME FROM
PUBLIC MONEY SHOULD NOT BE SPENT ON PRO SIDES OTHERWISE EVERY PRO SOCCER TEAM IN THE LAND WILL WANT HANDOUTS

David johnston speaks out in todays Scotsman
Board had no authority to make pro-team commitment

David Johnston

THE Genesis Review broadly adhered to the rugby policies of Ian McGeechan, the SRU’s director of rugby, and Jim Telfer, his predecessor. One of the prime justifications for the general committee’s vote of no confidence in David Mackay was its concern with the direction in which his board was taking Scottish rugby.

The discredited committee appointed Fred McLeod and three new non-executives, and the old chief executive has gone. But this temporary, shorthanded board with dubious moral authority has now taken it upon itself to commit to three teams for three years. That is wrong even if in the fullness of time the decision is proved to be correct.

The clubs broadly endorsed the pro-rugby components in the Genesis paper at the recent special general meeting, but those components were vague and lacking in any financial and rugby justification. Look at the balance sheet and look at the results of our pro and representative teams and ask yourself if the current structure is working.

With respect to the vast majority of clubs, they have little understanding of what it is like to operate in a climate where players can be pulled from their clubs at short notice, often as a result of pro-teams players being pulled from their teams by national coaches.

That is why the Heriot’s proposal - endorsed by all clubs at the sgm - calls for specific representation from premier clubs on the committee/council, so that these clubs can have their views represented in dealings with the executive. But now this temporary board has come to a decision without apparently consulting with the premier clubs and therefore without respecting the views of the clubs at the sgm.

The pro teams are also suffering at the hands of the national team management. We do not appear to have enough players to service three teams in the competitions in which they are entered and the representative fixture list. Especially when we have so many full-time coaches and managers, all of whom seem to want a piece of the same players. This premature decision by the board will be seen by some as a signal that nothing really has changed in Scottish rugby and that the executive is bedding back in to run the show as it has done for the past nine years with ruinous consequences in terms of our finances and our rugby wellbeing.

A truly objective review of how we play the game in this country is long overdue. We should, in my view, be asking some difficult questions. The future of rugby in Scotland - at mini, midi, schools, age-group, student, women’s and senior levels is the issue. If and only if these levels are vibrant and if and only if there is money available, then and only then does the question of the executive throwing funds at the national team management and running pro teams itself become viable. Indeed, one wonders how the Scottish Executive will view this week’s commitment.

The current scenario of the SRU executive having dissipated the union’s assets to support professional rugby and having to seek financial support from all and sundry to fund under-performing and under-achieving national and professional teams, at a time when player and supporter numbers are at an all-time low, highlights the fact that the priorities are the wrong way around.

Is no-one asking the question: "Can Scottish rugby afford professional rugby in its current format or even at all?" This is a fact of business life which professional administrators ought to have been the first to realise. And even if we can afford it, should we be doing it?

What about the facts of rugby life? The principal justification for having the pro teams at all was to encourage our best players to play in Scotland, so that our youth could be inspired by them by watching them play. The spectator and player numbers represent a fact of rugby life that the rugby division at Murrayfield ought to have been the first to realise.

Some say that if our coaches and players are competitive in an international sense, then they will be quickly snapped up around Europe if professional rugby as it is currently structured diminishes or ceases in Scotland. And that if the future Scotland XV consists of a combination of players playing their rugby outside Scotland plus players from within Scotland, then so be it.

We have always lost players abroad and so today a number of our key internationals play out of Scotland. Redeploying funds would, they say, ensure that grass roots would be nourished not drained of financial and playing resources as at present. There would also be a good chance that disenchanted supporters might well return.

Such a proposal represents the opposite of the current structure which the temporary board has just endorsed. Has that structure been tested in a rugby and financial sense? Where are the detailed financial and playing and supporting population projections which support the current structure and reject the other and others like it?

We know that the current structure does not work either financially or in a playing sense. For what it is worth I suspect the structure noted above might also not work. Something in between might.

The business and rugby cases on what levels of rugby can be nurtured and sustained needs to be made. Vested interests and incomes need to be swept aside. With apologies to some of the very good people now on the SRU payroll, Scottish rugby needs clubs and players more than it needs employees.

• David Johnston is an independent member of the SRU working party studying the governance of Scottish rugby.

See today's Herald for Kevin Ferrie's take on the SRU overstepping their authority.

Fred has done a political turnabout that would have done Jim Hacker proud in "yes Minister"

SRU in cash admission over pro teams

KEVIN FERRIE February 22 2005

SCOTTISH rugby does not have the money to support three professional teams, the SRU's interim chairman has admitted.
The confession from Fred McLeod comes just a week after the pro teams were promised SRU support for three years.
McLeod, who is also the stand-in chief executive, will give evidence today to the Scottish Executive's enterprise and culture committee as the SRU attempts to generate political support for its plans following last month's overthrow of the previous executive board.
The deposed officials had sought to bring a more business-like approach to how rugby in Scotland was run. Yet last week there was enormous concern registered by Premier One clubs, London Scottish, and even from within the SRU's working party on governance when a statement issued by McLeod pledged the support for the pro teams.
McLeod has not been prepared to explain how that will be financed, other than saying the SRU are merely "taking the same pie and dividing it up differently".
Sensitivities have been heightened throughout the sport with proposals being raised to change the set-up. These include developing cross-border competition at club level, basing a professional team in London and moving one of the Scottish pro teams to another location to suit private investors.
Those sensitivities will only be fuelled by the observations made by McLeod and Ian McGeechan, the SRU's director of rugby, in their joint written submission to the enterprise and culture committee.
"At the special general meeting an undertaking was given that the costs of our development programme through club/communities would be ring-fenced thus guaranteeing that the programme can be implemented," it reads.
"The knock-on effect of this is that if we cannot secure additional funding in the short term then we cannot fully fund our pro teams."
Those observations beg many more questions than they answer and all sectors of the sport will continue to feel threatened.

Nothing the SRU has said lately surrounding finances for the pro game has been the complete truth. I've constantly asked where the cash is coming from and have yet to receive any answers. Many are asking the same thing.

As I've said before these guys should be brought into Government as soon as possible. Spin, lies and untruths just to say to the Scottish rugby supporter, who shells out the cash, that everythings fine and dandy. The worrying's over!

The SRU bleatings about saving the professional game in Scotland is complete rubbish. They were found out at the SGM!

The SRU want everyone to have this "comfort zone" in Scottish rugby just now because of the resignations, international results, SGM. So the way it's dealt with is spin and lies to make everyone feel happier.

I was castigated for some posts I made on the forum here. I was asking questions a while back which have only now surfaced in the media circles.

People asking me why I attend the pro games when I post "such rubbish" about them on the forum. Most of the posts I've posted are what is happening day to day behind the scenes with the pro game in Scotland. It's not all rainbows and sunshine in there.

Overnight the pro game is healthy again? It just won't wash with some people. There are people within Scottish rugby at all levels who know what really goes on "behind the scenes"!

Renewing player contracts - nothing done.

Coaches contracts - pay cuts.

Scotstoun move - Complete rubbish from day one.

Franchising pro teams - No interest from anyone (SRU still will control them)!

Cash for the pro teams - Where from?!