SRU had 'no alternative' to paying ex-CEO Mark Dodson £800k

In January, Dodson announced he would step down in the summer after more than a dozen years at the helm, before his departure was brought forward to March this year.  

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The latest accounts, published earlier this month, show he was paid in excess of £887,000, a decision McGuigan, chairman of Scottish Rugby Limited – the operating arm of the organisation – explained.  

“It was pretty straightforward in the sense of that was what he was entitled to legally,” he said.   

Former chief executive Mark Dodson left Scottish Rugby earlier this year (Image: SNS) “We have a legal responsibility to pay out his contract. It was agreed in 2022 that we must pay him his notice period. That’s what he got paid. He didn’t get paid anything else." 

McGuigan said Scottish Rugby had “absolutely no alternative” but to pay Dodson, during whose tenure the SRU accumulated losses of £10.5m in 2022/23.  

The chairman added: “The alternative is that we could be taken to court, which we didn’t want to do, because the circumstances were very clear to us.” 

In June 2022 – while John Jeffrey was chairman of SRL - Dodson’s contract was extended until the summer of 2025. 

McGuigan, who took over as SRL chairman in May 2023, said that while that contract was agreed before his tenure, the responsibility to pay Dodson what he was legally due fell on his shoulders.    

“I appreciate everybody has got an opinion, and many people’s opinion is that that’s a lot of money, but in this role I’m in, the responsibility is to do what I’m legally required to do. And I was legally required to pay Mark what we paid,” he said.  

The AGM also gave Scottish Rugby bosses an opportunity to address the decision not to back 1990 Grand Slam legend John Jeffrey in his bid to become World Rugby chairman.  

The decision not to back John Jeffrey was also part of the 45-minute media briefing, held in person at Murrayfield, after the AGM (Image: SNS) Jeffrey, who had served as vice-chair, withdrew from the race in September when he said he had been informed by Scottish Rugby they would not support him.

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Professor Crerar said: “The SRU custodian board decided that they didn't feel they could support John Jeffrey in his application to be world rugby chair and the reasons for that were intimated to Mr Jeffrey.  

“They would be a matter for him they were personal to him and it would be inappropriate for me to tell you what they were." 

He refuted that it fell on Scottish Rugby to explain why they had withdrawn their backing to Jeffrey.  

"These are these are personal to Mr Jeffrey and it would be a matter for him to explain to you why we made the decision we did,” he said.  

He said the decision was “unanimously made by the SRU board “based on what we thought was in the best interest of what we were trying to do”.  

Crerar then revealed the SRL board was informed of the decision not to back Jeffrey in February, seven months before he officially withdrew.  

Meanwhile, Keith Wallace was ratified as president, replacing Colin Rigby, who departed after a four-year term, the longest-serving SRU president since the Second World War, owing to the pandemic.  

Keith Wallace is the new SRU president (Image: Scottish Rugby)

Wallace, a former president of Haddington RFC, addressed concerns that the AGM had moved to online-only having been operated on a hybrid basis last year.  

The new president said all options would be on the table going forward.  

“If you go back last year we had, we had one about this time for the first time last year and we ended up on a Saturday during the season,” he said in setting out the reasons for the change in approach.  

“It didn't go down too well with some of the clubs because it was a Saturday and we also didn't have a huge turnout on the day in the flesh.  

“This year, we looked at getting it after the autumn tests because that was the first slot we could get.  

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• Rob Robertson: Why online SRU AGM is a worrying change

“And the [Murrayfield] suites aren't available at the moment because we're now at the Christmas period, if we're going for an in-person or hybrid we'd have to go somewhere else and we'd have to pick up the cost of that.  

“From memory the extra cost was somewhere £25,000, we felt we'd have it online this year.  

“That doesn't mean to say we'll do that next year, we'll see how it went and get the feedback from the clubs.” 

Also at the meeting, Hazel Swankie won the election to become vice-president. 

Swankie, of Dunfermline RFC, will become the SRU’s second female president in two years time, following in the footsteps of Dee Bradbury, who served between 2018 and 2020.