Brian Kennedy says freeing the pro teams is best solution for SRU

Brian Kennedy knows the SRU and the game's challenges north of the border pretty well. The 51-year-old entrepreneur, who built up an impressive stable of companies and is the multi-millionaire owner of Sale Sharks, took up an offer from interim chief executive Fred McLeod during the bitter SRU meltdown in early 2005 to join the then new-look Scottish Rugby Board as a non-executive director.

It was an impressive step by McLeod, the SRU having had blocked efforts by Kennedy in 1999 to site a professional team in Edinburgh that would play in the English Premiership, where he believed that fortnightly visits from Leicester, Bath and the rest would underpin a sound business development of a professional rugby existence in Scotland. So, instead, the Edinburgh man pitched up at Manchester and realised his dream to help develop rugby in the new professional age with Sale.

Invited back to Murrayfield in 2005 the Scot showed the new board a DVD presentation of how he had built up Sale Sharks, turning a once-proud Manchester club left behind by professionalism and on the brink of bankruptcy into a viable concern, and which would go on to break even for the first time despite escalating costs, and win the Guinness Premiership in 2006.

Crowds rose from 1,000 to 10,000, hospitality revenues increased 400 per cent, merchandising income by 625 per cent and 20,000 supporters travelled to Twickenham for the Premiership final.

He survived a bold but necessary move from Sale's traditional but small Heywood Road home to share with Stockport FC at the 10,000-capacity Edgeley Park, buying Stockport to achieve it. Supporters, even those initially resistant, duly bought into Kennedy's dream and while they have suffered hard years since that season of silverware, they remain in the Premiership with a core of around 7,000 supporters - the attendance topped 16,000 when they hosted London Irish at Bolton's Reebok Stadium in April - and are building again with new coaches and a new squad on a tight budget.

Kennedy is a straightforward character, and he does not hide from the financial difficulties that professional rugby brings. Sale posted losses of 1.2 million last year, but to him that is part of being involved in sport.

"The business model for a professional rugby team does not turn a profit," he said. "We run a very tight business and are shrewd with our cost base. After ten years of running a professional team, where the game is bigger here in England and has more supporters than in Scotland, we are still losing a significant amount each year.

"We did well in 2006 and broke even, which was a great step and we hoped it would continue but it doesn't unless you keep winning the league and you can't do that every season.

"You just can't run a team and not lose money, unless you build a big brand like Leicester or perhaps Gloucester, and even then they're only making a small profit. The Premiership clubs suffered a 17-18m loss last season, which proves that the model is not self-sustaining."

Money talks in sport but few know more about what it actually says than Kennedy, who has now sunk more than 16m of his own money into Sale since taking over. He was at Murrayfield through the attempt to sell a franchise to Bob Carruthers, which he claims was wound up because the Carruthers consortium latterly discovered the real costs of building a team and didn't have the resources for it without significant SRU help.

He is a great admirer of Gordon McKie, the SRU chief executive who quit this week, and his ability with finance director Eamon Hegarty and chairman Allan Munro to bring the SRU back from the brink of bankruptcy. But Kennedy also believes it was the right time for a change and acknowledges that there has to be a change in how the professional teams are supported. Clearly, a "Kennedy" stepping in now would be helpful. He rules that out, but there have been others who have considered involvement in recent years. Scotsman Duncan Simpson-Craib, born and bred in the north of Scotland, a former Napier University student now multi-millionaire based in South Africa, pulled together an impressive consortium with the intention of launching a ‘London Tribe' team into the Premiership to take advantage of the massive southern hemisphere community inside the M25.

He spoke to The Scotsman about the possibility of becoming involved with the SRU but nothing materialised. Similarly, Graham Burgess, the oil businessman from Aberdeen, and rugby-mad US billionaire Roy Carver, went as far as meeting with Stirling Council, Kennedy, the Brumbies and McKie in developing his plans to launch a Scottish team.

McKie's desire to control how any professional team was run was blamed as a crucial obstacle to progress more than once. But if that obstacle is gone, one can only guess at what potential there exists for private investment. The reality is that the SRU will not be able to fund the pro teams to a competitive level for much longer. It is debatable whether they are now.

Kennedy agrees but quickly injects optimism into the conversation, however, insisting that with creative thinking, marketing and a willingness to let investors drive professional teams there should be hope.

"We've talked about how tough it is in England with the crowds and amount of players we have down here, so there's no doubt it's tougher in Scotland, but you're right, the SRU cannot do it alone. The [English] RFU bring in 25-30m, but they don't have to deal with those 18m losses incurred by the clubs each year.

"Anyone who gets involved with the Scottish teams has to be a sports-minded, rugby-minded philanthropist. They are few and far between, but there are some out there, and I believe there would be some interested in helping to drive Scottish rugby forward if the SRU sell these teams properly in the next wee while.

"We need to look very closely at the financial model, what the business plan should look like to create competitive teams. Look at the squad you need, the player budget you need, the overheads. You will need to be competitive and create a prototype business model with the aspiration and ambition, and reality, built in, and then get out there and sell it.

"OK, it's based around Edinburgh and Glasgow, but I tell you now that if I was in the position of being offered the Edinburgh team with its internationalists and the population and attraction the city has or Sale, I'd put my money into Edinburgh.

"There is definitely potential there - not to make lots of money, let's be clear, but to have a good time in rugby, creating a real professional club with an identity and that can compete across the Celtic nations and Italy, and in Europe.

"There are people who would like the glamour of owning or running the Edinburgh or Glasgow rugby team. Life is short.

"You can have a lot of fun investing in professional sport and take on the challenge of making Scottish rugby work for a few years. I do still believe that it can be done. There are enough rugby people who love the sport and if they can find the right stadium, get the right match-day experience, sell it well, they could get 10,000 people there and that would create a sustainable professional game.

"It will not be easy and will need a lot of effort. It won't happen this season or next, but will take time. If I was in Scotland I'd love to take on the challenge, but I have no doubt that there are people out there who could do it.

"And when there is interest, the important thing is that you let them run it. No bits of control from Murrayfield, bits from there, bits from here, because that doesn't work. And the SRU also need to get the right person because they would need to have the flair, marketing skills and entrepreneurial approach to make it a success."

Kennedy's passion remains as clear as when we spoke in 1999 about his plans to get into rugby then. He had been close to buying Hibs, but was thwarted by a late change of mind by Sir Tom Farmer not to sell. But he loves his rugby too, and played well into his forties.

Thinking outside the box is not something Kennedy aspires to, but does naturally. He was dismissed a decade ago, in football and rugby, as something of a loose cannon, a renegade with great ideas but little substance, but that has changed so dramatically that some now consider him a good candidate for SRU chief executive.

He laughs at the notion, but insists that he would be delighted to have a chat with Sir Moir Lockhead, the new board chairman, and whoever the new chief executive turns out to be, and provide some advice that this time just might succeed in kick-starting a new future for pro rugby in Scotland.