A matter of balance

RE: RICHARD Bath: “Calcutta Cup chickens come home to roost” (Sport, 16 February). Giving space to Frank Spratt, Accies executive chairman and the developer, to expose his self-serving rhetoric about semi-professional rugby was a mistake.

There are no plans for semi-professional rugby in Scotland.

The SRU are correct in not publicly supporting this development. The SRU constitutionally cannot be seen to support/promote one club over another. Your writer should know this and not allow this inaccuracy to be quoted by an unnamed “backer”. The same backer stated that it was a “few nimbys” that the SRU are attempting not to upset. If 3,800 signatures of residents, business owners and visitors opposed to this development amount to a few nimbys then this backer is deluded.

Why should the SRU back this plan when many other rugby clubs are being properly run and not having to resort to this type of initiative because the Accies’ affairs have been seriously badly managed?

Stuart Henderson, Edinburgh