John Jeffery was furious after failing to secure the backing of his own union for the World Rugby chairmanship. Image: © Craig Watson – www.craigwatson.co.uk
As John Jeffery drove off from Edinburgh's Braid Hills Hotel on Wednesday afternoon, after a media blitz that included face-to-face interviews with Scottish newspapers, telephone interviews with several news organisations across the UK and a meeting with the BBC at his home earlier in the day, he would have felt he had achieved his goal for the day, announcing that he was withdrawing from a race in which he had not been authorised to run.
The former Scotland flanker was the first to make his side of the story public, taking a shot at those he blames for thwarting his ascension to the top echelons of world rugby.
As for the collateral reputational damage he has caused to his own union by diving headfirst into yet another public expose of the Murrayfield stain, what does that matter to him?
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Jeffrey told the BBC that the world is now “laughing at us”. “I don't know if they're laughing at me or at Scottish rugby but they are laughing and it's bringing Scottish rugby into disrepute.” [SRU] board.”
Well, it wasn’t the SRU board that launched the campaign during last year’s World Cup without absolutely checking whether the highest authority, the Management Committee, with whom it is admittedly has a bitter history, would recommend him.
Jeffrey claimed he had been under the impression that the application would be approved, despite the friction which led to his early and ignominious departure from his role as chairman of the Scottish Rugby Union. [SRL] – the operating arm of the organisation – will be established in April 2023.
“They didn't use the word 'support,' because I was looking back at it,” Jeffrey admitted when asked what specifically the Custodian Committee had offered him as part of his departure agreement 17 months ago. “I think the press release said, 'You can focus on the bid,' so it indicated they were supporting me. I got the impression from that press release and the meeting that they were fully supporting me in doing so.” It's always a good idea to read the small print.
Jeffrey then explained that he had relied on his successor as chairman of the SRL, John McGuigan, to liaise with the Custodian Committee, and that McGuigan had assured him he had the support he needed. Someone, somewhere is misleading someone.
He acknowledged that officials in England and Ireland began telling him there were problems earlier this year and an article on this website on July 25 revealed that the trustees were adamant that they had no intention of getting his approval.
And yet Jeffrey has refused to call the Chair of the Trustees, Professor Lorne Crerar, to speak to him directly and find out exactly where he stands. This is astonishing and reckless.
Was he playing the “who will turn a blind eye first” game? Was he hoping the campaign would get to a stage where the Trustees would feel compelled to hold their noses and go along with it? Surely that would have been the easier option for them.
Jeffrey was disingenuous in ignoring suggestions that issues such as the disastrous business model Scottish Rugby developed under his watch and his callous handling of the Siobhan Cattigan tragedy during his ill-fated tenure as chairman of the national governing body might rule him out as a suitable candidate, and inferring that a “personal grudge” sparked by his fierce opposition to the governance review that led to the current structure was the only realistic reason the trustees would block his candidacy.
The Trustees, if they were to break their silence on the matter, would no doubt agree that it was indeed “personal” because they did not think he was the right person for the job.
As for the “grudge” part, I'm sure the Trustees would argue that they could not in real conscience impose on a global governing body someone they have likely already decided (rightly or wrongly) was neither qualified nor capable to do the same job in Scotland.
Geoffrey points out on several occasions that there are people who were on the management committee when Scottish Rugby was unwittingly going into the red and formulating the response to the Cattigan crisis… but they weren’t running for senior office and because he was the chairman the responsibility lies with him!
Keep in mind that the main purpose of the governance review was to loosen the stranglehold that he and former CEO Mark Dodson had overseen from a small, unaccountable cabal of people on the organization.
“Personal vendetta” is a strong phrase, and one that could be used as a libel sentence. The Trustees include Professor Crerar, a leading lawyer, elected club rugby representatives Colin Rigby (SRU Chairman), Keith Wallace (Vice Chairman) and Ian Barr (former Chairman), as well as David Grevenberg (Chief Executive of the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games Organising Committee), Cheryl Black (experienced Customer Service Director and Non-Executive Director of Communications and Digital), Maxine Mandich (a chartered tax adviser and certified fraud examiner who has held senior leadership roles in the UN monitoring sector, including as Head of Investigations for the World Food Programme, UNRWA and the World Health Organisation) and Alison Milne MBE (a consultant and director to a number of companies and charities in the agriculture industry). These are all decent people who would not be happy to be portrayed as narrow-minded or vindictive.
The Trustees' silence on this matter is frustrating for all who want to better understand how we got to this disastrous impasse, but it is not their job to get into a media spat because one person has screwed them up – rather it is their job to report back to the club (the owners of Scottish Rugby) at the appropriate time – so if this issue is not raised and discussed in the Annual Report and at the SRU AGM on 27th November then we will start to get angry about the lack of transparency.
It would also be enlightening to learn the contents of the letter received from the Custody Committee last Tuesday (“a quick note,” in Jeffrey's words), but Jeffrey said he “is not going to go into extreme detail because it's private and confidential.”
It will be a shame for Scotland to lose the honour of having their country represented at the pinnacle of world rugby, but the presidency is supposed to be an independent position so let's not get carried away with how much it will benefit Scotland on a practical level.
It would be fair to ask referees and former Scotland sevens players the extent to which their interests were represented on the committees he chaired during his 14 years as Scotland's head of World Rugby (since 2016 he has been on the executive committee).
As Stephen Jones argued in this morning's Sunday Times, “When you become head of world rugby it's only natural that you no longer promote your country's cause. In a sense you become less Scottish. Taking power as chairman of the sport undoubtedly means abandoning home-grown attitudes and your own little corner of the world.”
“Jeffrey is said to have produced a substantial document in which he shared his intentions with colleagues at World Rugby. We will never know as he kept it a secret from rugby fans. Much of rugby's operations are only open to close friends.”
Jones added: “His [Jeffrey’s] It's also striking that he expressed confidence that he was the front-runner, alluding to the notorious behind-the-scenes campaigning within World Rugby. In fact, nominations for the role have yet to open, starting this week, so how did he know he was the likely winner?
The impact of this unfortunate mess on Scottish Rugby will become clear in the coming days and weeks, and it is clear that serious tensions have been created between McGuigan’s SRL board and Crerar’s Custodian board as they try to tackle the well-known, existential challenges facing Scottish rugby, leaving incoming CEO Alex Williamson asking himself what on earth he has signed up for.
Jeffrey missed the opportunity on Wednesday to argue that this is evidence that the “two board” model he has so fervently opposed is problematic, but others will counter that this is an example of a bicameral structure doing its job of preventing serious mistakes. Scottish Rugby currently has a standing governance committee. [SCOG]The committee, chaired by Sheriff Bobby Fraser, will be closely monitoring developments.
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