British and Irish Lions officials were “very pleased” with the Vodafone 1888 Cup international game staged at Murrayfield on Saturday despite the decision to curb alcohol sales and power outages in the stadium, said Scottish Rugby CEO Mark Dodson.
Fans paying as much as £150 a ticket for the Lions’ send-off on their tour of South Africa were reportedly furious at the restrictions in the stadium when a decision was taken to stop selling alcohol before half-time.
A power cut in part of Murrayfield caused one of the video boards to fail and there was considerable criticism of the stadium on social media from Lions supporters.
However Dodson, while launching Scottish Rugby’s three-year strategy to emerge from the pandemic lockdown, said he’d spoken with Lions managing director Ben Calveley and the Scottish Government’s clinical health director Jason Leitch and both had been pleased with the way the day went.
‘Feedback from fans, sponsors and broadcasters was incredibly good’
“I spoke to Ben this morning,” said Dodson. “He said the feedback they had from fans, sponsors and broadcasters was incredibly good and they had no issue at all with what happened on Saturday. They were very pleased with the event.
“I spoke to Jason on the Saturday and he was really thrilled with the way that the even went off in terms of health and safety.”
Dodson conceded that the alcohol issue had caused some disquiet but the decision to curb sales had been made on health and safety grounds.
“As far as we are concerned, this was our first Covid protocol event at the stadium,” continued Dodson. “We had an unprecedented demand for alcohol and it had been configured for this game.
“Effectively we had the opportunity to go back and restock the bars, creating more problems for traffic round the stadium estate but the social-distancing protocols were in place, so we decided not to put alcohol for sale after half-time.
“We took a conscious decision and our focus was on health rather than hospitality.”
The problems with power and wifi were “a technical issue” that could have happened at any time.
“It is just one of those issues that we regret but getting the game away safely, making sure a spectacle was provided, was something we have to deal with.”
‘We all known the infrastructure has to be worked on’
Dodson did concede that the fabric of the stadium – rebuilt in 1994 and upgraded piecemeal since then – was starting to age. In the strategy plan, Scottish Rugby reveal the international game brings in 70% of their revenue, and Murrayfield itself is an obvious cornerstone element of that.
“We all know the infrastructure of the stadium has to be worked on,” he said. “Ever since I arrived here we’ve had plans to upgrade Murrayfield when we’ve had the money.
“In a stadium of this size a few million pounds is like a flea bite, it doesn’t go very far. What we’ve had to do is use our money smartly and upgrade parts of the stadium which we could afford.”
The plan had been to use the influx of money from the sale of a seventh share of the Six Nations – some £44.5 million – on “generational or legacy” projects, and that could mean Murrayfield.
Talks with government on upgrading
“I was talking last week to the government about the redevelopment of the stadium,” continued Dodson. “We should be looking, with the government, to upgrade as extensively as we can over the next five years.
“But we’ll have to have partners in that. We’ll have to do it in conjunction with government because it’s such a colossal capital item.
“The stadium was rebuilt in 1994, our competitors have venues much younger than that. What we need to do is bring that up to speed.
“We now could be in position to contribute towards something that could be done.”
They would likely not move from the famous site, he said – “unless you have someone who can offer to build us a brand new stadium on the M8”.
“The cost of refurbishment and the costs of buying land and rebuilding are unbelievably different,” he said.
“You’re much better refurbishing if you can. We’ve got a prime piece of iconic real estate in central Edinburgh – everyone knows where we are.”