WHEN club representatives attend a special general meeting of the Scottish Rugby Union on Friday night, they might well be minded to ask what a motion proposing the sale of a stake in Glasgow Warriors or Edinburgh Rugby has to do with them.

The answer, according to Mark Dodson, the governing body’s chief executive, is that it has everything to do with them: that a move designed to strengthen the two professional teams will also fortify other parts of the sport.

“The domestic game is the lifeblood for all our stakeholders,” Dodson said. “They care about the game from grassroots right the way through to the age groups and academies, and right up to the international team.

“What we’re trying to say is if we don’t do something here o,ur finances are going to be strained on one side of the business or the other. And if we fall behind in the pro and international game, it makes it a hell of a lot harder to invest the way we are in the domestic game.

“I’d hope they [the clubs] see this as their board and management coming to them, openly, transparently, and saying: ‘We’ve foreseen a problem here and are coming to you early to do something about it, to protect the domestic game. Will you allow us to do it?’ And I think they believe that that’s what we’re doing.”

Time will tell on that front, of course. As well as producing a resolution on the motion, the meeting will be an indication of just how sceptical clubs feel about the leadership of the sport – and perhaps also how neglected they feel.

The SRU will need the support of two-thirds of voting clubs for the motion, and it also requires at least 106 voters to attend for the meeting to be quorate. The motion, to be proposed by SRU President Rob Flockhart and chairman of the board Sir Moir Lockhead, states: “Subject always to the prior approval of the board of directors of Scottish Rugby Union plc [the ‘company’] and on such terms as the board of directors consider appropriate, that the company be and is authorised to dispose to a third party or parties, whether by sale of or subscription for equity, assignment, sale, transfer or otherwise, of any part, or if thought fit or arising through a series of transaction, all of the business, undertaking, assets or interests of the company comprised from time to time within its professional and performance rugby operations.

“This authority shall not extend to the disposal of the whole or any substantial part of the company’s heritable property at BT Murrayfield Stadium, Edinburgh, notwithstanding its use to support professional and performance rugby activity.”

Naturally, the main focus for most of the Glasgow and Edinburgh players just now is the announcement of the Scotland squad for the Autumn Tests. Vern Cotter, now in his final season as national coach, will reveal his selection on Tuesday.

But while this represents the immediate future for the bulk of the Warriors and Edinburgh squads, Friday night’s Murrayfield meeting could well have a longer-lasting impact on their careers.

If the clubs give Dodson the green light to begin the search for external investment, and if that search is successful, the two professional teams could become far better equipped to meet the challenge of the best clubs, the richest clubs, in England and France.

Conversely, if such investment is not forthcoming, Glasgow and Edinburgh could remain also-rans in Europe, and may well find it harder to compete in the PRO12, should the Welsh and Irish teams prove more successful at attracting fresh sources of funding.

There is no guarantee that Dodson will succeed, and there are sound reasons why potential investors might doubt the wisdom of getting into bed with a governing body. For their part, the clubs who attend on Friday will have the right – some would say the duty – to seek reassurance on what precisely a deal between the governing body and new investors will look like, and how exactly it will work in practice.

Provided such reassurance is forthcoming, however, those clubs should give Dodson the chance by voting for the motion.

All other things being equal, the influx of new money into Scottish rugby can only be a good thing – and if the deal is handled in the right way, it could well be a boost to the game as a whole, not just to the professional team or teams who will be the initial beneficiaries.