Mark Dodson claimed yesterday it was “entirely my decision” to stand down a year early as Scottish Rugby’s chief executive, even though he has faced mounting criticism of his actions from some within the sport - and diminishing support from within Murrayfield.
The 63-year-old, who has been in office since late 2011, is under contract until the summer of 2025 but is now due to leave in the middle of this year, with the precise date of his departure dependent on the selection of a successor. Speaking on a media Zoom call after his resignation was announced, he said there was still a lot of work for him to do before leaving, and uttered his conviction that he is leaving the business in a good place despite the £10.5million loss recorded in the latest set of accounts.
“My role won’t change in the slightest between now and the summer when I actually step down,” Dodson said. “I’ve still got lots of things I want to do between now and the summer.
“Several factors were in play to influence my decision. When we got back from the World Cup (last October), I thought long and hard with the family and we believed it was only right that the next World Cup cycle be given to someone who is actually going to see it through.
"It was entirely my decision. I talked it through with [Scottish Rugby Limited chairman] John McGuigan at length during the autumn and I suggested this was the right time to go. We agreed; we moved on.
“It was right for me to say, ‘I think we should hand this over to someone who will be able to execute it over the long term’. There are other things I want to do in my career and we felt it was the perfect time to do that.
“I think the business is performing really, really well. Rugby is in a tough place at the moment across the whole of the UK and the Southern Hemisphere.
“We’re trading well in a really difficult market, so, from my point of view, the business is doing well and I’m happy with where we are on that.”
Dodson was paid well over £600,000 last year and has benefited from a generous system of bonuses. Asked if his pay had been good value for Scottish rugby, he said:
“That’s for other people to decide. I don’t pay myself, I don’t write my own cheques - somebody else gives me the remuneration that they believe I’m worth.”
While that remuneration has been a source of rumbling discontent within Scottish rugby over the past few years, more acute and more widespread dissatisfaction with Dodson’s behaviour has been evident since the death in late 2021 of Scotland international Siobhan Cattigan. The Cattigan family said that rugby-related brain injuries caused a significant decline in her health, and criticised Scottish Rugby for not commissioning an independent inquiry into her death.
Dodson’s public response was defensive and legalistic, and widely regarded as devoid of empathy. That contrasted sharply with the decision by McGuigan, just a few months after his own appointment, to issue a public apology to the Cattigans at November’s annual general meeting.
Yet despite that evident difference in approach, Dodson insisted that the Cattigan affair had not played any part in his decision to quit. “There is no connection,” he stated. “It is an upsetting affair and it’s been a difficult time for everybody, but it had no bearing on my decision at all.
“I’m not here to talk about the Siobhan Cattigan case today,” he continued when asked if he should have offered an apology on behalf of the union. “I’m here to talk about the reasons for me going, so I won’t be answering that question.”
Dodson also offered a similar response to a query about his remuneration, the largesse of which contrasts awkwardly with the straitened economic circumstances in which Scottish Rugby finds itself. He is understood to have been paid well over £600,000 last year, and on top of his basic salary has benefited in some years from a generous system of bonuses. Asked if his pay had been good value for Scottish rugby, he said:
“That’s for other people to decide. I don’t pay myself, I don’t write my own cheques - somebody else gives me the remuneration that they believe I’m worth.”
For long enough, Dodson was clearly held in high esteem by some colleagues within Murrayfield, including those who decided on his pay packet. But the resignation of John Jeffrey as Scottish Rugby’s chair back in May robbed him of a key ally, and the subsequent reshuffle of the organisation’s governing structure along with the arrival of McGuigan further diminished the considerable clout he once enjoyed. If the decision to go was indeed entirely his own, it was hardly one in which external circumstances played no part.
