SFA chief executive, Stewart Regan, clearly sees opportunity among the carnage that is Scottish football at the moment as he leaked plans to ambush clubs into a radical overhaul of the league structures to the media yesterday.
Henry McLeish made several recommendations in his paper on the future of our game, one of which was for a smaller professional setup of two leagues (SPL 1 and SPL 2), sitting on top of a grass-roots pyramid of community based clubs, as well as a 10-team top division. I agreed with both recommendations but relegation-dodgers in the SPL refused to countenance such a deal.
While it seems a 10-club top division is as far away as ever, the SFA are keen to push through a SPL 2 proposal before the start of the new season, something which borders on ultra-ambitious.
An unattributed SFA source (surely Regan himself) briefed BBC’s Jim Spence on their plans but the language was curious:
“Someone has to take a lead and sort out the internal bickering and point scoring and also to ensure that the Rangers situation never happens again.
“We need to use the mood for change among supporters in the country to tackle the current inertia and do what is right for the game.
“Change has to be democratic, but the time for talking has passed. We need action now to save the game.
“The fans are demanding fundamental change. The Rangers situation has intensified the need for a resolution and, over the next few weeks, we will meet with the SPL and SFL to find a solution.”
In order to “ensure the Rangers situation never happens again”, why don’t the SFA start by ensuring former directors of Rangers, who participated in the controversial EBT scheme which precipitated the crisis, are removed from the SFA board?
The SFA president received loans from Rangers EBT which he did not repay despite the club going bust last week. There is a belief that those loans were never meant to be repaid and that many of Rangers EBT loans were accompanied by written confirmation that they were never to be repaid, making these ‘loans’ an illegal tax scam.
The SFA chief executive claimed to have investigated and cleared the president of any wrong-doing. No one else is aware of this investigation. There is a suspicion that all he did was listen to the president’s version of events, compounding an already dreadful situation for the SFA.
We would love to hear how Mr Ogilvie explained why he didn’t repay his loan.
Two weeks ago we spoke about the SFAs inadequate corporate governance on these matters. If only corporate governance was the extent of the problem, they appear quite shameless.
“Someone has to take the lead…. tackle the current inertia and do what is right for the game”.
Sack the clown before you start to preach to the rest of the game.
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Of ole Club 12 turn out like we think, they will fair bring back the Chunder.
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BSR- esp if the ole Club12 Glee Club have the same dreary repertoire.
Auld Neil Lennon heid
I have already cancelled SKY Sports and ESPN and told the operator exactly why.
Dunfermline’s ‘share’ has went to Ross County. It has already been stated that Dundee would be Club 12.
Did you know…
…that the distance between Barcelona and Tenerife is greater than the distance between Glasgow and Lisbon?
Or that the distance between Bari and Turin is greater than the distance between Edinburgh and Brussels?
Or that the distance between Monaco and Rennes is greater than the distance between Aberdeen and Amsterdam?
In Spain, France and Italy, clubs regularly travel these distances to meet domestic fixtures. It’s just the way it is. Unremarkable and long established.
A pan-regional league in North West Europe encompassing Scotland, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Norway and Sweden, perhaps Ireland too, would have a smaller geographical footprint than many of the ‘big’ European leagues.
It might not be great for carbon emmissions perhaps, but it’s by no means unfeasibly distant.
Just a thought.
Monaghan1900
Thanks for that, still find it highly strange they can do this though
Pantaloon Duck
It was remiss of me not to thank you for your original answer.
The key in my original post was “the devil’s advocate”. Even if it was for the debating society at school or uni, I really don’t know what arguments I could come up with. Gordon J’s is probably as close as you could get to logic and coherence, but as you say even these points are poor.
Somebody at Sevco or Duff and Phelps or the SPL or the SFA or the BBC or Media House must, surely, have something better, but if they have I have not seen it.
Don’t know if this has been posted and is common knowledge :
And as if the revelations that HMRC are now going to investigate all players, directors and former managers who received EBT’s wasn’t just brilliant weekend news, we now have Jean Alain Boumsong dropping football agents (Gordon Smith) right in as well :-
OH DEAR ……
Jean-Alain Boumsong
“When I discovered it I first
refused to sign the contract,” he
told The Sun . “It’s important to be
able to sleep at night without fear
of being chased by the tax office.”
“My salary was paid normally, but there was a trust. I was not
comfortable with that, to be
honest. I didn’t know anything
about it until the day I was going
to sign.
“When I discovered it I first
refused to sign the contract and
said: ‘what is this?’ I didn’t want
to sign because it seemed
strange, we don’t have that kind
of payment in France and I
didn’t know anything about it.”
Boumsong added: “When I left
Rangers, for example, to sign for
Newcastle, it was for a normal
contract with normal payment but
the day I was signing for Rangers I
was told it was legal.
“I was not comfortable with it,
because it wasn’t a normal way of
payment, but I was told it was
fine.
“As players we don’t know
everything about the law but my
advisors said: ‘it’s okay, you can
sign it. It’s legal’.
“I wouldn’t have signed otherwise.
If I thought it was wrong legally I
wouldn’t have gone. It’s important
to be able to sleep at night without
any fear of being chased by the tax
office.”
thanks troops
i knew we were playing reel madreed.
but i didnt realise the sparkly supercomputer that takes
4 weeks to whirr and clank oot the spl fixture list did.
TBB
I’m glad you are here.
Please. What is the argument, from a devil’s advocate perspective, for new club getting into the SPL or even being entertained as a possible candidate?
Glendalystonsils likes a mr whippy with his lime green jelly,
Ole Gerry butler will be a happy Bhoy :o).
DBBIA
Club 12 will do the same ole – squawkin away.
I think Celtic fans and other SPL fans should organize a mass cancelation of sky sports . We pick a specific day and all cancel stating that we are not happy with sky’s threat of re-negotiations if ‘The Rangers’ are not granted a new slot in the SPL .
We can’t stand idly by !
TBB -presumably there would be no place in your ole TransAtlanticBaltic Conference for the ole Still Horribles, for at least 3 years?
malceye on 18 June, 2012 at 09:22 said:
Unfortunately, today’s society is governed by the “It wisnae me” school of thought adhered to by Mr Hunt the culture secretary. Short of a public display of intercourse with a goat, no-one seems to be obliged to resign.
===========================
Even then, in Scotland, the goat would have to go.
Club 12 ?
My addled ole bonce remembers seeing lots of buildings called Club 12 in Texas . They were places to go for people who were doing that 12 Steps thing.
‘a public display of intercourse with a goat’, or, as it’s known in Ayrshire, ‘Mardi Gras’.
If Dunfermline pursue the dual contract situation,the huns would finish bottom,and the Pars would have finished 11th.
Celtic_First,
As you know, there would be no conceivable argument for a brand new club going straight into the SPL. It is supposedly a league made up of the top 12 teams from the previous season so, by definition, excludes any new club.
The only argument is that this isn’t really a new club because it is Rangers and Rangers deserves a place. But ask them about the debts of Rangers and they will say that they are a new club so it’s nothing to do with them. It’s the attempt to square the circle that I’ve been banging on about for months.
myboysnowatim on 18 June, 2012 at 10:55 said:
Now that HMRC are to pursue individuals the Boumsong defense will be repeated. If it mirrors his form at Newcastle they have no chance.
TBB
Thanks for that quick trip around europe
Love
South Of Tunis,
Yes, Google ‘Club 12’ and you come up with an alcohol rehabilitation organisation.
I bet they are wondering why their web hits have suddenly gone through the roof with visitors from the UK.
Celtic_First on 18 June, 2012 at 10:54 said:
The most devilish bit of advocacy I can come up with, aside from those already presented by Gordon, is that Newco have a large (legacy) supporter base and that all those supporters “deserve” to have a team in the SPL.
Which is really just another way of saying that they arra peepel…
Electronic Tims @ETimsNet
Mark Dingwall hosting an Anti Green (typical) Rally in Bellahouston Park next weekend. How much is this costing in Police man hours now??
Dark Mingwall stepping into his Herman Göring role, he’s the sight shape for it..
!!Bada Bing!! on 18 June, 2012 at 11:01 said:
If Dunfermline pursue the dual contract situation,the huns would finish bottom,and the Pars would have finished 11th.
+++++
Agent Whyte said that he ended the EBTs when he arrived, so there would be no dual contracts from the season just ended.
And there’s no reason to disbelieve him, right?
Devil’s Advocate is what ole Donald Findlay has on his business cards.
I’m having so much difficulty getting worked up about stuff today: next up SKy renegotiating.
When the original offer would have been drawn up, and I guess it was sometime in the season before last, as they talk about it depending on Rangers being in the league seemed to start right at the beginning of last season, I think it was natural to go on the assumption that Rangers would be in it.
I think it’s completely obvious that they’re going to renegotiate. There’s nothing sinister about it.
I suppose they could have put an offer on the table with two sets of circumstances. Nothing like seeing the potential losses in black and white to force your hand. To me that would have been more sinister and coercive (sp?).
C_F
I disagree with Pantaloon Duck’s WATP argument.
I suggest a better argument is TWTP: They Were The Peepul
Less flippantly, OK, here goes:
If you create a business predicated on Entertainment, the measure of Entertainment is Box Office, ticket sales, bums on seats. The The Rangers is a box office draw insofar as they have a theatre with 50,000 seats and a substantial number of people who are preferentially inclined to buy tickets to be entertained there. Indeed, their theatre is the second largest in the country.
Furthermore, the Television audience for entertainment provided at The The Rangers theatre is also the second highest in the country. Thus, the wider market for such entertainment is considerably enhanced by hosting events there, and as income is proportional to audience, the larger audience will drive greater revenues. As we have created an Entertainment Business, Revenue is a Key Measure. More people paying to watch in larger theatres is a revenue positive strategy.
The argument of course falls down on the first premise: Football is an unscripted Sporting event, rather than a scripted show. If you enforce an outcome on an unscripted spectacle you lose the thing that people are prepared to pay for.
What would happen if the Appelate Tribunal backdated a one year suspension of RFC(IL) to the season 2011/2012?
RFC(IL) get relegated, Dunfermline survive and the SFL get to sort out what happens next
VertWolf
Clubs in Scotland have to remember that the biggest part of their cash comes from ticket sales!
Piss off their customers and treat them like idiots and they are effed, look at Ratners* for example.
* For all those youngsters, 20 years ago Ratners were the biggest and most succesful Jewelers in the UK, their owner said he sold crap and they wre gone within weeks!
Gordon J ———
Thanks ——- it is good to know that my memory is right [ occasionally ]
Re the why the SPL needs a Rangers argument —— mate in Glasgow told me of over hearing this in Tennents———.
” Rangers are Scotland —– Scotland is Rangers “
DBBIA
Having checked, the distance between Edmiston Drive and Civilisation is an unbridgable chasm.
Has anyone noticed that we are away to ross county twice.
Inverness ct twice.
Club 12 only away to both teams once.
Who was the manager of Neuchatel Xamax at the time of ole Liam Brady’s Celtic, and
a certain 5 -1 reverse?
No Googlin CSC
Roy Hodgson
Thanks to TBB, Pantaloon Duck and Gordon J for good points and a good discussion.
Yous are the peepil.
By putting out a fixture list without the word “Rangers” on it, has the SPL not accepted that the former football club no longer qualifies for membership?
As there is an SPL Board meeting today should it not be formalising this by removing the SPL share from the former football club?