McKay states the SRU case

As D-Day over Scotland’s national stadium nears, SRU chief McKay makes his case

NEXT Wednesday, the SFA will make one of the biggest decisions in its history: Whether to remain at Hampden or move to Murrayfield — the home of Scottish Rugby.

With the governing body’s lease with owners Queen’s Park due to expire in 2020, a prerequisite for remaining in Mount Florida is taking ownership of the 115-year-old ground from the amateur club.

But as Sportsmail revealed last week, Queen’s Park are demanding £6million to hand over the keys, with the SFA only prepared to pay £2m.

Despite Glasgow City Council chief Susan Aitken saying moving away from Hampden would be a ‘historic stain’ on the game and ‘devastating’ for the local community, there remains a very real possibility that Murrayfield could happen.

Sportsmail’s JOHN McGARRY sat down with SRU chief operating officer DOMINIC McKAY to examine the pros and cons of the Murrayfield bid.

Where do you see your bid presently standing?

There has been daily dialogue between ourselves and the SFA. If we were in a 400 metres race, we’re into the last 100m.

Most of the information we need to supply, we have supplied. They know everything they need to know about us.

The feedback has been warmly received and very positive.

If it’s a race, is there someone in front of you — or can you see the tape?

I believe we’re in a great position and have an outstanding bid.

We have hosted major football matches before and the feedback from players and coaches about our surface has been great.

It was lovely to have the four Hearts games there to remind everybody what a wonderful venue it was.

The feedback from the Hearts players and management — and the opposition — was very heartening in terms of the dressing rooms and facilities. We feel we have a very special offering.

We have the biggest stadium in Scotland, with 67,000 seats, and that gives us the opportunity to generate a significant amount of income.

Might that not just mean more empty seats?

I was told the story that, if you don’t have a successful team on the pitch, people won’t turn out. But it’s not true.

If you market successfully and give people a good reason to come to the event, they will come. We’re selling out games we would never, ever have sold out in the past.

Can you crunch the numbers for us?

Those 17,000 extra seats — if I look from a rugby point of view — with an average ticket price of £30, that’s £2m (based on four games per year). Transfer that to football and it’s £2m a year for 20 years, which could be reinvested into football.

We would work in many different ways, as we do with rugby, to ensure those 17,000 extra seats were sold out.

We do it with the Guinness Pro14, we do it with concerts — we had the Rolling Stones there recently with 50-60,000 people — and we would do it with football. We work really hard and we’re really excited about it.

How do the local residents feel about the prospect of regular football on their doorstep?

We’ve had a great reaction from the City of Edinburgh, who are fully behind us. They recognise they have an iconic venue on their doorstep.

The best evidence of that was when we accommodated the four Hearts games last October and November.

It was a late request from Ann Budge but we managed to accommodate them and the feedback from around the city was very positive.

Okay, but what about the practicalities of Celtic and Rangers playing each other?

We’ve done all the modelling with Police Scotland, Transport Scotland and the railway guys as part of our bid. Everyone is relaxed about that.

We had Celtic play their Champions League qualifiers when the Commonwealth Games took over Celtic Park in 2014.

We had the biggest travelling Rangers support — 15,000 or 16,000 — when they came through for the Hearts game. We’re confident, our partners are confident.

We will learn from Celtic and Rangers about how they want to set it up. But the Rangers board was very positive about their experience and the way we looked after their support.

But the Scottish Police Federation have voiced concerns about the proposed move?

Police Scotland have confirmed that, regardless of what decision is taken, they will comfortably manage the situation. So I go with Police Scotland, although I understand the Federation have a position on matters.

Which sport would get priority in terms of the calendar?