Moves to use Murrayfield for more high-profile events have been given a boost with the confirmation that next season’s Heineken Cup final is to be held at the home of Scottish rugby. The stadium’s owners are also in talks about staging leading football, rugby league and American football matches, so this vote of confidence from their own sport gives them the chance to demonstrate that they can put on these events smoothly and with the support of the city’s public.

Predicting that the Murrayfield final on the weekend of May 23-24, 2009 will attract a sell-out crowd, Derek McGrath, the chief executive of ERC, the Heineken Cup organisers, said it was the partnership package involving the Scottish Rugby Union, Scottish Government bodies and the local authority that meant Edinburgh beat off the rival bid from Paris.

The final was last staged at Murrayfield in 2005, which was also the last time the climax of the European competition failed to attract a sell-out crowd, with 51,000 turning up at the 67,000-seater stadium to watch Toulouse defeat Stade Français.

“Whenever you get two teams in the final from the same country, it is going to be a hard sell,” McGrath said. “When the same thing happened before, there were 35,000 at Lansdowne Road, so it was an improvement on that and it gives us a new benchmark to work from.

“We learnt a lot from that, and things have changed. It is a significantly bigger event now and there is a lot more excitement. This year’s final was sold out by February, before anybody knew who would be facing each other , and it is that sort of support that makes it an event instead of just another game between two big teams. Edinburgh is a very attractive destination, so it is an easy sell in that regard.”

The organisers estimate that the 2005 final brought in more than £15 million to the Edinburgh economy, with supporters arriving early and staying late, though McGrath acknowledged that if the Edinburgh team - or Glasgow for that matter - were to reach the final then, while it should guarantee a sell-out crowd, it would also cut the economic benefit to the region.

The organisers see themselves as putting on a show of global importance, a position backed yesterday by Sean Lineen, the New Zealand-born Glasgow coach, who pointed out that in the southern hemisphere, where crowds and television audiences for the Super 14 are falling, they are jealous of the success of the Heineken Cup, which is heading in the opposite direction.

Gordon McKie, the SRU chief executive, was also conscious of how much the game in Scotland should benefit from staging the showcase match of European club rugby, with the possibility of seeing a home team in the final helping to energise support for the two Scottish professional clubs as they try to build on the progress they have made this season.

“We have said before that we are in talks about using the biggest stadium in Scotland to host more big sporting events and this is a good start,” McKie said.