After an encouraging 2019 season for Rugby League in Scotland, following an extensive recruitment process, a number of new appointments have been made to the Board of Scotland Rugby League.
Joining the Scotland Rugby League in the newly created role of Vice Chair is Professor John Harris. Professor Harris is an academic who has worked at universities in England, Wales, Scotland and the USA. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute for the Management of Sport and Physical Activity and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. He is well-known for his work on the socio-cultural analysis of sport and has published work on a number of different sports, including Rugby League. Much of his substantive research focuses on areas such as celebrity, identities and globalisation. His most recent publications include the co-edited book Rugby in Global Perspective (Routledge).
Born in Wales, he started coaching football as a teenager and undertook his first degree in Sport and Human Movement Studies. He spent two summers coaching in the USA and led the development of one of the leading football education degree programmes in the UK. He has worked with a variety of sports organisations and retains a strong interest in community sport development as a researcher, advisor, volunteer coach and parent.
Professor Harris is currently Associate Dean (Research) within the Glasgow School for Business and Society at Glasgow Caledonian University, where he is part of the Senior Management Group for the School. He also serves on the editorial boards of four international journals and supervises doctoral research across various management subjects.
Scott Simon joins the Board as Director of Player Pathways. Scott has lived in Aviemore since 2003. He is the Head Coach of the British Canoeing Paralympic Programme and is responsible for all aspects of performance and delivery, and is accountable for the delivery of UK Sport Milestone Targets at major championships and the Paralympic Games. Scott is a member of the 2018 UK Sport Future Leaders Programme, has a PhD in Elite Coaching and is an accredited strength and conditioning coach.
Scott is a former Rugby League player, representing the RAF, Combined Service, Wales Amateur, Student and Senior Teams as well as Great Britain Students. He had a short spell playing professionally for London Broncos before getting injured.
David Fallon also joins Scotland Rugby League as Director Development. David lives in Glasgow. He has a first class honours degree in Sport Development from The University of the West of Scotland and is currently the Head of Development with Scottish Squash, where he has worked since 2014. David also has experience in planning and delivering major world-class events, most notably Judo, Wrestling & Boxing at the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games, and Wrestling at the 2017 Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games, Ashgabat, Turkmenistan.
David is a veteran American Football player and currently an offensive captain for the East Kilbride Pirates. He has played the sport since the age of 11.
Rob Moffat joins as Director Commercial. Rob has over ten years’ experience working in sports partnership, sales, activation and marketing roles in football and rugby union.
He has recently relocated back to Edinburgh from Cardiff, where he was working for the Welsh Rugby Union. Rob has previously worked for the Scottish Rugby Union where he was senior commercial and marketing manager and headed up partnerships that included RBS, BT, Famous Grouse, Canterbury, Lloyds, Murray International and SSE.
Rob is a member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) and sits on their Scottish Board. He has a Professional Diploma in Marketing (Sports Pathway)
Keith Hogg, the Chair of Scotland Rugby League said: “As we make more progress in the development of Rugby League in Scotland it is essential that we continually look to improve the quality and depth of the SRL Board. When we advertised these Board vacancies we were massively encouraged by the number of high quality people who were interested in getting involved in our great sport. As well as the appointment of John, Scott, David and Rob, we have been able to meet other people who will take up other roles within the sport and we will be making further announcements in the next few weeks about our non-exec Directors.
