Scotland head coach Townsend remains defiant over Red Bull role and insists he will 'step back' if it starts to affect the national team

Gregor Townsend has again defended his decision to take on a second job with the energy drinks firm Red Bull.

The Scotland head coach, who has named a 45-man squad for next month’s autumn international series, began his controversial consultancy sideline with a recent visit to Salzburg where he met with several of the organisation’s senior executives.

Red Bull recently expanded their sporting empire into rugby by buying English Prem club Newcastle Falcons and rebranding them as Newcastle Red Bulls, and are leaning on Townsend to provide them with rugby expertise on a 30-day-a-year contract.

The former Scotland fly-half insisted this was not the starting point for him to eventually move into Newcastle on a full-time basis following the 2027 World Cup — when his Scotland contract is now set to expire — and said he would dial back his Red Bull involvement if it started to impinge on his day job with Scotland.

‘I can’t predict the future,’ said Townsend of that possibility. ‘When Red Bull spoke to me about an advisor role, they described it a little bit as what Jürgen Klopp does for them in football. So, who knows what will happen after the World Cup.

‘I think, obviously, the goal is to extend my [Scotland] contract to that time and we’ll see what happens. But that’s the goal now, to give everything in the next two years. I don’t know what’s going to happen after that.

‘If is too much in terms of time, then I can control that. They’re aware of that too. If it means I have to step back, then I step back. It’s my time when it’s holidays, when it’s weekends, or time that I’m not in camp.

‘I could choose what to do with that, whether it’s media, which I don’t do, or other things, in business. But because this one obviously involves a company and an organisation that’s involved in sport and now involved in rugby, Scottish Rugby had to agree to it, and they did.’

Townsend believes this partnership with Red Bull will benefit Scottish Rugby in a performance sense but also, potentially, financially down the line, too.

‘That was a sporting learning but also to learn more about Red Bull the company,’ he said of his trip to Salzburg. ‘It was seeing their head office, visiting the academy that they have set up there for Salzburg football but also the ice hockey team.

‘They have an athlete performance centre for all their individual athletes in Salzburg too, which was excellent — real state-of-the-art support for athletes. It was a condensed day, but it was good to learn more about the company, especially the sporting organisations. I see that as one of a number of opportunities I’ll get to learn from what they’ve done in other sports.

‘It would be a huge help if they were interested [in investing in the Scottish game]. There is obviously the tie-up. With me now having a relationship with the Europe CEO and the UK CEO, there could be, obviously, chances for conversations. There will be. But you’d have to ask Alex [Williamson, Scottish Rugby chief executive] on that.’