The “betrayal” of John Jeffrey, in his own words, has shone a light on the governance of the Scottish Rugby Union on the highest-profile stage and with the most inauspicious timing.
Jeffrey, a World Rugby council member since 2010, is a former chair of both the SRU and the Six Nations Council and, in May last year, was elected unopposed as the governing body’s vice-chair after Bernard Laporte had been forced to stand down in ignominy after being found guilty by a French court of corruption.
Jeffrey’s manifesto to take over as chairman from Bill Beaumont was described as a “1,000-day action plan” and the Borders farmer, at the heart of Scottish rugby as player and administrator for over 30 years, had planned on standing for just one term.
But Jeffrey announced on Wednesday that he had been “betrayed” by the SRU. The reasons for this would be better suited to an episode of House of Cards than a rugby boardroom. Just as with the Rugby Football Union’s council and executive board, the SRU is run by two different groups: Scottish Rugby Limited, the executive, operational arm; and the Custodian Board, the oversight body who represent Scotland’s amateur, grass-roots clubs. It is this latter group with whom Jeffrey has come a cropper.
Telegraph Sport understands that members of the Custodian group had axes to grind with Jeffrey over past disagreements during his three-year tenure as SRU chair. The 65-year-old was chairman of Scottish Rugby Limited from 2020-23 and a schism developed between the executives paid to run the game and their community counterparts.
During that period, Jeffrey faced criticism for the SRU’s handling of the Siobhan Cattigan tragedy. She died aged 26 with her family claiming that undetected rugby-related brain damage triggered decline in her health. The SRU apologised to the family.
The SRU also faced flak over former chief executive Mark Dodson’s remuneration packages, and the post-Covid business strategy which led to a £10.5 million loss.
In deciding to stand as World Rugby chair, Jeffrey always held the support of Scottish Rugby Limited, now led by John McGuigan, but it appears that the same was not forthcoming from the Custodian Board, a body whose creation Jeffrey opposed.
The blocking of Jeffrey’s candidacy demonstrates a rift between the business people in Scottish rugby and those at the helm of the community game. That latter group clearly feel aggrieved by the way in which Jeffrey led Scottish Rugby Limited between 2020 and 2023 and have grasped their chance to get their own back, in a way which does not really concern Scottish rugby, but global rugby.
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