DAVID SOLE ON RUGBY

On Friday, the long-awaited review into the governance of Scottish Rugby, undertaken by Sir Bill Gammell and Norman Murray, was published.

Its content is quite radical and will be put to a special general meeting for the clubs to vote on, probably in February or March.

The rights and powers of the trustees and council will be transferred into a single, new organisation with a new board consisting of an independent chair; three independent non-executive directors from a commercial, industry or other professional background; three further non-executive directors with a background in rugby and up to three executive directors.

The guarantors of the new company will be the clubs that are members of the SRU, but this is where their representation ends.

The non-executive directors will be appointed by the existing Nominations Committee of the SRU and each nonexecutive will have a three-year term on the board, with the option to be re-elected at the AGM of the clubs.

This is very similar to how many companies operate.

The board is quite large, with effectively seven non-executives (when you include the chair) and up to three executives, but it is accountable to its key stakeholders – the clubs.

Shareholders of companies do not get involved in selecting who is on the

‘ The greatest challenge will be getting a twothirds majority

board of those companies, but they do re-elect them, so there is no reason why the SRU should be any different.

The recommendations sound sensible and commercially focused. One interesting development on company boards is that one non-executive is responsible for organisational culture.

Given the claims of the SRU suffering from a toxic culture around the time of the “Russell affair”, it will be interesting to see if this principal is followed as well.

Perhaps the greatest challenge will be getting a two-thirds majority at the SGM, given the loss of club representation.

This week also saw John Barclay announce his retirement from international rugby.

In a career that spanned from a first cap against the All Blacks in the 2007 Rugby World Cup to his 76th, and final, cap against Russia in Japan, Barclay was one of the “Biller Bs” – the so-called back-row threesome where he was joined by John Beattie and Kelly Brown both at Glasgow and for Scotland.

Barclay could, and should, have won more caps. He spent a couple of years in the international wilderness while playing exceptionally well for Scarlets and then damaged his Achilles, which took him out of rugby more recently.

An outstanding player and leader, he will be missed.

The SRU could do worse than ask him to fill one of the non-executive director roles as a rugby expert – he would certainly add value and perspective.