Dodson not convinced by native tongue

Senior Sports Writer

Tuesday 30 October 2012

On the eve of today's latest round of negotiations in Dublin on the future of the Heineken Cup, the Englishman who heads the Scottish Rugby Union has blamed his countrymen's intransigence for the impasse that is threatening the tournament's future.

Mark Dodson has accused English clubs of making it hard to move forward in negotiations about how best to improve the Heineken Cup. Picture: SNS

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Kevin Ferrie

At a media briefing held in The Old Course Hotel in St Andrews where Scotland are preparing for the forthcoming autumn internationals, Mark Dodson, the Manchester-native who took over as the SRU's chief executive last year, issued a defiant message to English clubs who are demanding changes to the tournament's structure.

In doing so he showed his contempt for the way PRL, the body representing them, had handled matters to this point. He also refuted reports that there was now tacit agreement that the two places given to Scottish clubs and the two given to sides from Italy was no longer a viable arrangement."There's much noise being made in England, a lot of selective leakage about this subject," said Dodson. "The Celtic Nations and Italy are working incredibly hard to make sure PRL and LNR [the French equivalent] don't steamroller any proposals through. In my opinion PRL are now even more isolated than ever. Since these talks began, the notion of gunboat diplomacy has backfired. I think you'll see this will be no walk in the park for English clubs. Scotland have absolutely not lost their two places."Dodson admitted Scotland's negotiating position has been undermined by the worst performance for eight years by the country's professional teams on the first two weekends of this season's Heineken Cup. However, he believes the Celtic nations and Italians will show solidarity and that French support for English clubs is weakening. "Negotiation is something you have to take the temperature of as you go along," he said. "I can tell you that every conversation I have had with the Celtic Nations and the Italians has been one of complete solidarity and that isn't moving. If anything, attitudes are hardening toward the PRL."I think the French have distinct sympathies towards us, but they have club owners who are asking for change. The French are still seeking their own position, plus there's an election for a new chair of the LNR so there's some posturing going on there."We're not going down the road of concessions until we see some from the other side. At the moment we're seeing none. We want to talk about the tournament's health, but we don't want to talk about it being hijacked by a TV deal that was announced the night before the shareholders' meeting. That's not the way to do business."In expressing confidence that the tournament would be saved Dodson pointed to a lack of leadership from the governing bodies of England and France, the RFU and FFR – who are separately represented on the European Rugby Cup Ltd board from their clubs – while he feels those club representatives might themselves be acting without proper authority."I don't think we will just be left with the Rabo," he said. "If the English leave then the French could still be part of it [the Heineken Cup]. I don't think the French want to just play in an Anglo-French competition. "The English might want that. The French want negotiation. They're prepared to talk about the substantive issues. The English aren't prepared to talk about anything other than what they want."The RFU have been passive in this and PRL have taken the lead, similar with LNR and the FFR. You have to ask what the mandate of the PRL and LNR is and you may find that not all clubs are committed to the strategy that's been led by them. I don't think they're asking their members what their position is."Dodson also questioned the motivation of the English negotiators, suggesting they were principally motivated by a lack of success in the tournament, Irish clubs having won the Heineken Cup in five of the last seven seasons. "The English are always blaming something – no promotion/relegation in Rabo, or the Irish and French have more money than they have, or something else," he said."If they'd won four out of the last seven Heineken Cups I'm sure we wouldn't hear any of this. They have to come to terms with the route they've chosen for their leagues. It's important for the European Cup to have all of Europe fairly represented."

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Dodson not convinced by native tongue

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