SFA keen to change others while retaining their architect of destruction

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.