ALL IN THE TIMING
SRU chief Dodson’s salary is DOUBLED to £933k despite season of failure and profit fall Murrayfield bosses forced to reveal wage details after at first keeping name off balance sheet With Six Nations almost upon us, controversy is the last thing Scotlan
GREGOR Townsend names his squad today for what is turning into a truly monumental Six Nations for Scottish rugby, one in which everyone must, or should, be focused on one thing — results.
Yet, it was financial results off the pitch which threatened to cast a shadow over the under-pressure Scotland head coach’s preparations yesterday as the news broke of Mark Dodson’s eye-watering pay packet for the previous year.
Indeed, Scottish rugby fans were left truly stunned after it was revealed that the SRU chief executive more than doubled his salary from £455,000 to £933,000.
The SRU had held their agm back in August but did not release their financial results for the year May 2018 to May 2019.
One may wonder why. Indeed, one may also wonder why they would wait until just prior to the big Six Nations kick-off to break the bad news.
Of course, there was no fanfare surrounding the accounts being lodged with Companies House in Edinburgh. Turnover was up, profits were down. Nothing to see here.
In fact, Dodson’s name didn’t even appear next to his salary. It was only after some prodding that the SRU confirmed it was his pay before releasing a statement confirming why, exactly, it had been so generous in its chief executive’s remuneration.
It read: ‘Scottish Rugby can confirm its accounts noted in Companies House show payments made to its most senior director and all directors for the last financial year, which reflect the individuals’ contribution to its Long Term Incentive Plan to deliver on the organisation’s strategic initiatives and targets.
‘The directors’ fees and salaries for 2019 also contain bonuses covering the first three years of a five-year plan, 2015/16, 2016/17 and 2017/18, as well as annual bonus awards for 2017/18 and 2018/19.
‘Financial turnover grew over that period from £47.4million in 2015/16 to £61.1m in 2018/19.
‘The Company’s Remuneration Committee sets the parameters of annual medium and long-term objectives and targets and assesses progress against them, before deciding whether any award should be made under the annual bonus scheme or Long Term Incentive Plan.’
The statement didn’t mention the drop in annual profits to £308,000, nor that part of the last year’s increase in turnover was due to having three Six Nations games at home, instead of two from the year before. Dodson wasn’t the only one to cash in, with the total payments to directors at BT Murrayfield also jumping from £1.13m to £2.46m. Of that figure, the cumulative wage bill for the three other executive directors of Scottish Rugby, chief operating officer Dominic McKay, finance director Andrew Healey and general counsel Robert Howat, also more than doubled from £535,000 in 2018 to £1.178m.
The SRU insisted that it was a ‘one-off’ salary for Dodson and his senior staff as three years’ worth of performance payments for hitting financial targets, plus two separate annual bonuses, were all recommended to be paid in the same financial year, although they could not reveal what levels of pay they would receive in the next financial year.
What has angered many Scottish rugby fans is that, since May 2017, the SRU has not had its problems to seek. And while financial performance may be on the up, it is not reflected elsewhere. During that period, Keith Russell, father of Scotland international Finn, successfully sued the SRU for unfair dismissal and Dodson was criticised by members of the tribunal for his handling of the situation, which led to a massive shake-up into how the SRU went about their business.
Financially, Dodson has been a success getting the SRU’s house in order with turnover increasing annually and full houses the norm at Murrayfield. On the pitch, however, it has been a very different story, with little success for the national team nor the two professional clubs. Former Scotland captain and
Sportsmail columnist Andy Nicol said he could understand fully why fans would be furious at the timing of Dodson’s salary announcement.
‘Mark Dodson didn’t write his contract,’ said Nicol. ‘Somebody else did and recommended his pay rise. He is deserving of a bonus. It is the amount that is the contentious issue. One thing that
has happened at Murrayfield is that, over the last 15 big games, it has always sold out. There have been a lot of good things and I suppose the financial situation was always going to be improved once the naming rights of Murrayfield were sold to BT.
‘What is difficult for people to accept is that — when the national team did not qualify for the knockout stages of the World Cup, we did not have a good Six Nations, the Under-20s were relegated and failed to qualify for the Uunder-20 World Cup in Italy, the women’s team have hardly won a game and Glasgow are losing players and not being replaced like for like — that such a big salary is being paid to Dodson.
‘They would argue some of his bonus money could have been better spent on signing a new Stuart Hogg for Glasgow.
‘Look, there are two things in play here. There is a contract with financial incentives that has been hit but, from a performance perspective on the pitch, there are targets not being hit.’ Dodson has been SRU chief executive since 2011 and last had his contract extended in March 2018 for a three-year period up until March 2021. He had his pay package rubber-stamped by the SRU Remuneration Committee, as did the rest of the executives.
The Remuneration Committee are responsible for monitoring and approving executive directors and certain senior executives’ remuneration packages, setting and monitoring key performance targets and reviewing succession planning. It is not clear on what actual date they agreed Dodson’s salary but, during the 2017-2018 financial year, former Scotland prop Ian ‘Mighty Mouse’ McLauchlan was chairman of that committee. Mike Monro, Lesley Thomson, David McMillan and Rob Flockhart, for only part of the year, all served on it.
McLauchlan remained as chairman until April 1, 2019, alongside Adam Gray, William Gardner, Thomson and McMillan.