Heineken Cup management company pays out €30m despite pre-tax loss

EUROPEAN Rugby Cup (ERC), the Dublin-based company that manages the Heineken Cup, made a pre-tax loss last year but still managed to give €30 million to the Irish, English, Welsh, Scottish, French and Italian rugby federations.

The latest accounts for the company show a loss of €170,000 in the 12 months to the end of June 2008 compared with a profit of almost €540,000 in the previous year. Turnover for the year fell to €35.6m from almost €37m in the previous year.

In 2006, the company broke even and, in 2005, it made a loss of €538,408.