Keeping the ball rolling

The Heineken Cup has enjoyed huge success in its 12-year history but chief executive Derek McGrath isn’t about to rest on his laurels. He discusses the tournament’s future, television rights and the magic of Munster with Michael Moynihan.

THERE’S a tortured pun waiting to be unleashed somewhere when you consider the chief executive of the European Rugby Cup once looked after sick animals. Derek McGrath started his working life as a veterinary surgeon before taking charge of the ERC back in 2000, when three people in a Dublin office ran the organisation. Now there are 15 on the staff, which isn’t a surprise when you consider the workload.

“At the beginning we had to put the important structures of the tournament in place, in terms of regulation and procedures across six to eight countries,” says McGrath.