Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Fixtures and flittings

Update: By the season's end Hibs will have endured 16 different kick off times. Here's a fresher look at the situation from 4th April - Hibs: That's Fife

Confirmation that Hibs and Aberdeen will contest the Scottish Cup semi final at 12.15 on Saturday 14th April brought forth a predictable reaction.

Another chance to join the gnashing of teeth over badly chosen kick off times for semi finals. And should we really be playing this game at Hampden anyway?

Such complaints are now traditions, entwined with the venerable trophy.

Agree with them or not, it's a Scottish Cup semi final. (Some) people would go if it was played on a wet Wednesday morning at the Basingstoke Bowl.

The resurfacing of this annual argy-bargy did get me thinking though: Hibs face five different kick off times in their next five games.

At the end of that run they will, by my reckoning, have kicked off at 13 different times this season.

13.

Unlucky for some.

Here's the dirty baker's dozen:
  • Tuesday - 7.45 pm
  • Wednesday - 7.15 pm
  • Wednesday - 7.45 pm
  • Friday - 7.45 pm
  • Saturday - 12.15 pm
  • Saturday - 12.30 pm
  • Saturday - 1.30 pm
  • Saturday - 3 pm
  • Sunday - 12 pm
  • Sunday - 12.15 pm
  • Sunday - 12.30 pm
  • Sunday - 3 pm
  • Sunday - 3.45 pm
I'm sure supporters of other SPL clubs will have similar tales of woe.

There are many reasons why crowds at Easter Road have been dwindling in recent seasons.

Build all the nice facilities your prudent housekeeping will stretch to but you still need to give people something half decent to watch when they're there.

Hibs have failed the fit and proper person test for football's crucial raison d'etre: they've been a bit rubbish at playing football.

But the scheduling can't help.

Supporting a football team can be a labour of love and it can be a financial drain.

It can also be a habit. A habit that, once broken, might never return.

So why are we making it so difficult for supporters to support their clubs?

Lives are getting busier. There's a world of competition for the leisure time of a populace that is quite unrecognisable to the one that powered Scottish football's post Second World War boom.

Yet the scheduling of home games in the SPL is all over the place. Away games have become a test of endurance for those with time and cash to spare.

That can't be right.

Football, we're told, is a business now. Businesses shouldn't treat consumers like this and expect to thrive.

TV is the major culprit. I think most of us now accept that we can't roll back the influence of the broadcasters.

But even here Scotland looks to be losing out. We don't have the consistency of coverage that we need to build our brand.

Treated like filler, thought of as filler. And given no platform to grow.

We're the Diagnosis Murder of TV football. We might never be a Sherlock or a Downton Abbey. But it would be nice to try and prove ourselves as a Countryfile or a One Show.

Instead we've got TV deals that don't really deliver the way it should but which dictates a schedule that sickens fans.

So, as the fans lose out, Scottish football proudly straddles the worst of both worlds.

That has to change.

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Tuesday, March 13, 2012

UEFA: TV or not TV


Remember this:

"Old Firm fans last night reacted furiously after the SPL scheduled 6pm midweek kick-offs away to St Johnstone for both Rangers and Celtic."

Furious they were.

Or this:

"UEFA have robbed St Johnstone and Hearts of a £165,000 windfall after refusing to allow their Scottish Cup replay to be shown live on TV next Thursday.

"They told the SFA they would not allow Sky coverage because it clashed with European ties and the game will now go ahead in its original Tuesday night slot."

Totally robbed.

The scenario: last season Rangers and Celtic had to play midweek away games at teatime to satisfy both the SPL's TV deal and UEFA's  rule that no televised game can threaten the purity of the Champions League.

This season St Johnstone and Hearts were denied a TV bonanza because it was decided that their Scottish Cup replay could have threatened to purity of the Europa League.

We need, I think, to stop chuckling at the idea of UEFA's current strumpetish tournaments having any purity and ask what games through yonder European window breaks?

Last week the Arsenal and Barcelona stages of the painfully elongated Champions League "round of 16" were subjected to stubborn competition from Chelsea and Tottenham in the English FA Cup.

Today Inter v Marseille and Bayern v Basel will run the risk of 1970s style devaluation in the face of a Merseyside derby.

It seems odd.

St Johnstone v Rangers could damage the Champions League.

St Johnstone v Hearts could cripple the Europa League.

But Birmingham v Chelsea and Liverpool v Everton wouldn't harm a UEFA fly.

Strange.

A number of people were pondering this perplexing UEFA peccadillo last week. It seemed to leave even the SFA and their chief executive, Stewart Regan, bemused.

An exasperated Laurie Dunsire over on Scottish Football Forums was forced to ask: "Do UEFA care about football?"

Maybe Laurie asked the wrong question:

"Do UEFA care about Scottish football?"

"No, couldn't give a flying fig."

That's just my opinion though. Right of reply is important.

Here's the answer I got when I asked the question of UEFA:

"In general top division matches cannot be on International Match Calendar dates, but exceptions are possible.

"There is a Memorandum of Understanding signed between UEFA and the EPFL (European Professional Football Leagues) which is also a basis for all national associations on the procedures and circumstances of use of UEFA dates.

"In this Memorandum the parties agree to abstain from jointly organising any supra-national sporting competitions, tournaments or football matches, and, with regard to the domestic league competitions, to respect the International Match Calendar and to ensure that all its member leagues abstain from scheduling matches in dates which are reserved for UEFA club competition matches in accordance with the official published UEFA Match Calendar, unless exceptional circumstances so justify and it is agreed with UEFA on a case-by-case basis following discussion of potential issues in specific working meetings to be held between UEFA and EPFL.

"UEFA has as well issued three circular letters to all national associations stating the procedure for exceptions due to force majeure."

What conclusions to draw from that?

Certainly I have a raging desire to see the term "Memorandum of Understanding" forcibly ejected from the language.

And I'm inclined to think that any answer containing a 100-plus word sentence is deliberately searching for obfuscation.

More particularly:

"Top division" and "domestic league competitions" would suggest that the televised Chelsea and Spurs games last week were, as cup games, actually perfectly acceptable under the terms of the UEFA agreement.

Does that mean the SFA made an assumption - wrongly - and didn't even ask the question of UEFA when considering the St Johnstone v Hearts game?

Surely not.

That doesn't explain why Liverpool v Everton is free to go ahead tonight.

"Force majeure" covers many an ill but an unpredictable Scottish winter, the reason for last season's early kick-offs, would seem to be a stronger negotiating hand than one of the Liverpool teams reaching the Carling Cup final, the reason for tonight's clash with the Champions League.

There's a chance that the authorities in England, more powerful and cash rich than their Scottish counterparts, just thought "hang it, we'll make more cash from these games than UEFA's going to fine us."

Or maybe I'm just being cynical.

It does seem that there is, for whatever reason, a double standard at play.

Predictably enough it looks like Scotland is losing out somewhere along the line.

Sources:

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Friday, March 09, 2012

Scottish Cup: Dream on

That time of year when each paper has a riff on the same theme: "Hibs fans don't need reminding that it's been 110 years since their side won the Scottish Cup."

Well, no. We don't.

Yet everybody does remind us. Constantly.

The scraggy punchline of a 110 year joke. Mostly a joke that bludgeons you about the head with no attempt at subtlety. Or, largely, any attempt at humour.

But you can't point that out. Because it's been 110 years. And that, even in the hands of a bar room bore or a five year old in the playground, is indeed a joke.

1902 and all that. The journey continues.

2012 and all that. A season's journey of some discomfort. Tomorrow Ayr United and a shot at redemption in a tournament that so rarely offers Hibs any succour.

Ayr dumped Colin Calderwood's Hibs out of the cup last season. It's not that many years, but many a manager, since they dumped Franck Sauzee's sorry soldiers out of the league cup at Hampden.

Pat Fenlon will know that you don't need to beat Ayr to enjoy a fruitful reign at Easter Road. But it helps.

It won't be easy. An away tie against a lower division team that have already conquered Inverness, Hearts and St Mirren this season.

Cup assassins, stalking the Brylcreem boys of the SPL.

That's the chosen narrative.

Mind you, Ayr have only won four league games at home this season and lost to Annan Athletic, two divisions below them, at home in the Challenge Cup.

Lies, damned lies and peculiarly ambivalent statistics.

It won't be easy for Hibs. Partly because it's rarely ever easy for Hibs.

And partly because Ayr are a sound team who have been here before. They'll be lying in wait, ready to offer the hand of friendship with a traditional Somerset Park welcome.

Prediction?

Not on your nelly. I wouldn't want to jinx it.

Jinxing things is something I often do.

Last week I wrote a hagiographic appraisal of Celtic's season so far. The very next day they only managed a draw at Aberdeen.

That's the thing about football.

You build up your aura of invincibility, you look like you might finish the season undefeated. But there's always something lurking round the corner ready to bite you on the bum.

Often that something is shaped like a dogged Aberdeen, drilled to within an inch of their lives by a pair of unimpressed curmudgeons like Craig Brown and Archie Knox.

That's the way soccer's cookie crumbles.

But the treble chase is still on, a tricky quarter final trip to Tannadice notwithstanding.

Tricky? United are bubbling along quite the thing, Houdini Houston is fair putting the season's earlier struggles behind him. United are reaching for the European stars.

Unfortunately for United it's Celtic who have the better of these Tannadice tear-ups. And the last time somebody knocked both Rangers and Celtic out of the Scottish Cup Alex Ferguson was using Doug Rougvie as a human gargoyle.

Celtic's dominance at Tannadice has lasted slightly longer than Motherwell's over Aberdeen. It won't feel like that for Craig Brown and Archie Knox.

Since they hot-footed it to the greener pastures of Pittodrie our dynamic duo have seen their current side huff and puff against their former charges with little success.

On one occasion Brown even found time to have actual physical fisticuffs with John Boyle. Really.

Aberdeen look a different proposition now. It's taken longer than he'd have hoped but Brown has located a backbone in his team. They're much harder to beat, if still not exactly licensed purveyors of the beautiful game.

So a better Aberdeen. But Motherwell are better still.

A strange one this for Motherwell. They're now just a few games here and there away from consecutive Scottish Cup finals. And a Champion's League qualifier.

I'm sure Stuart McCall has every confidence in his own ability as a manager but I suspect even he wouldn't have thought this season had the potential to turn out quite as well as it might.

The man with the ginger mane has become the man with the golden touch.

Which just about seamlessly segues to Hearts whose ginger touch in front of goal has hamstrung them in recent weeks.

A five game run that was unrivalled in the league for the paucity of points gathered was finally halted with victory at Ibrox last week.

Whatever the circumstances, victory in Govan should replenish and revitalise like a weekend spa. Hearts need to build on it.

Wins have proved even more elusive for St Mirren. Danny Lennon has built a side that concedes very little and scores not a lot.

The result is the current sequence of low scoring draws. Those of us of a certain age will recall that Lennon's first tentative footballing steps were taken at Easter Road under the dourly defensive tutelage of Alex Miller.

Nobody's ever rocked a sequence of dull draws like mid to late eighties vintage Lexo Miller. The apprentice is paying homage to the master.

St Mirren's last visit to Tynecastle was in January. They conceded in the first minute, were 2-1 up inside 20 and eventually lost 5-2.

The current run is perhaps an antidote - maybe not the most inspiring one - to that sort of result.

Will they be doughty but blunt again tomorrow? Will Hearts be enterprisingly comfortable but toothless?

Eight teams. 90 minutes (or 180 or 200 or 200 plus penalties) away from a Hampden semi-final.

Dreams used to be made of this. It would be nice if this weekend could go some way to proving that they still are.

Heart v St Mirren: Draw
Ayr United v Hibs: No comment
Dundee United v Celtic: Away win
Motherwell v Aberdeen: Home win

Thursday, March 08, 2012

Rangers: Another week of questions


Football attracts wideboys and chancers.

Over the years most supporters will have questioned the morality or legality of this director or that chairman.

But the collection of charlatans and chancers who seem to have attached themselves to Rangers in recent years must take some beating.

Take Dave King, a man still being chased by South Africa's tax authorities over unpaid bills and associated charges that stretch to over £220 million pounds.

King has announced plans to sue David Murray. That's David Murray, the man who presided over the club as it ran up the unresolved £49 million that continues to spew a noxious smog over Ibrox.

Somebody throw the bald men a comb to scrap over.

How about Craig Whyte? The much derided new owner, the fantasy billionaire, who is still - or so events in the High Court today would suggest - determined to get his hands on some of the money that it appears he never had any intention of investing in the club.

He wants to be remembered as the man who saved Rangers even while royally screwing them, a man so discredited that the SFA have belatedly discovered he doesn't even measure up to their own overly generous fit and proper person procedures.

Gary Withey, the company secretary and lawyer with the firm which played a key role in the massively damaging Ticketus deal? Well, he's quit his law partnership and disappeared.

Some would argue that administrators David Whitehouse and Paul Clark deserve to join this gallery of guilt.

Maybe, maybe not. I'll try to keep the last vestige of faith I have in decency and say they're not guilty of crapping on Rangers' doorstep. They've just got the unpleasant task of looking constipated while wading through someone else's shit.

Where now? The lack of consensus shows the complexity of this financial funk.

The administrators are looking for a quick sale. But what is there to buy? A club that's shuffled on it's knees to the block, a £49 million guillotine ready to fall?

I'm not a businessman but that doesn't seem like the sort of investment many accountants would be chuffed about.

So liquidation? Looks like it.

And then a conflagration in Scottish football like we've never seen before.

Rangers delivered from the murderous attentions of that parcel of rogues into the hands of the cowerin', timorous beasties of the SPL.

Will that august institution be ready?

Possibly not.

Neil Doncaster, chief executive of the SPL, has taken to saying that he never predicts the future. He says it with the crazed look of a man who has just realised that his only real job now is to try and prepare for the very future he never predicts.

What happens now if Rangers, newly liquidated and newly "newco-ed" come knocking on the SPL's door?

The SPL could let them in - and if the rules dictate they can't then the wonderful thing about the SPL, its central conceit, is that it can change its own rules to suit its members - and get on with things.

Getting on with things would offer some comforts - I've already explored the pull of the TV deal - but it would also be hugely uncomfortable.

There will be clubs - majority, minority, lone voice? - who claim that the sporting integrity of the league would never recover from such a move.

This is a league where the vast majority of clubs start the season thinking that third place is the best they can do. It's not a league where sporting integrity has tended to reign supreme.

Yet with each passing day public opinion would seem to be hardening. The easy fix for a lot of clubs - ignore what's right and do what's best for them - might now prove so unpopular that it drives their own fans away.

Timing will also matter. If Rangers are forced to ask the newco question before the SPL's investigation into second contracts - an investigation stretching back to the birth of the league in 1998 - has delivered its findings can the league even entertain the question of re-admittance?

And what planning has been done for life without Rangers? I've mentioned before that some clubs might see that life as a double punishment: the injurious distorting of the playing field and then a further whack as Rangers fantasy finances come crashing down.

What contingency plans does the SPL have in place to cushion the blow?

It's easy to rant about the league never recovering from the moral blow of letting Rangers back in. It's easy to theorise about the Scottish football boom that would - and there's absolutely zero guarantee - be sparked by the disappearance of Rangers.

But there are top flight clubs used to living a hand to mouth existence, clubs that find comfort in the peculiar world of the SPL as they know it, clubs that don't see where the benefit is for them in painting this as a simple battle between "good" and "bad."

How will they be protected?

All of which, as the tide surely turns against the readmittance of Rangers, means we need some sort of plan.

What we have instead is Neil Doncaster hoping that if he shuts his eyes it will all just go away.

And I'm not sure that's enough of a plan.

Where do Rangers go without the SPL?

I've seen a lot recently from Rangers fans arguing "well, screw the SPL, let's just go to the Third Division."

Fair enough. A lack of humility isn't really what's needed right now, but if it was an available option it might prove cathartic for all involved.

Would it work?

Doncaster has tried to sell everyone a dummy this week by saying that it's the SPL or nothing for Rangers. The weakness of the diversion is best illustrated by the confirmation that the BBC's Chick Young was the only person to fall for it.

No Rangers in the SPL would mean promotion for the First Division champions but no relegation for Dunfermline, Hibs or anyone else.

That would leave a gap in the SFL.

The new Rangers could apply to fill that position. There would be no guarantees they'd get in but one would expect the SFL clubs would see them as a gift horse rather than a Trojan horse and welcome them with open arms.

Again though timing would be important. Rangers, in whatever form, would need to be in a position to apply for the free spot and be good to go for the start of next season.

It's likely that they would be but their readiness could still depend on timing of liquidation and what assets the newco has to start with.

Both these eventualities - SPL or SFL - would look to depend on somebody being able to exert some control over events. Nobody seems to be able to do that.

That's why the unlikely scenario of a total, scorched earth collapse remains just about visible on the horizon.

I'd not bet on any outcome. The liquidation of Rangers as we know them I fully expect.

Then?

I'm still not sure.

We will get a brutal period of briefing, counter-briefing and hysteria as the SPL make a decision on which the lives of some clubs - not just Rangers - could depend.

After that I think it's now more likely - but miles away from being absolutely certain - that we'll see a new Rangers starting up from scratch in the Third Division.

But I'm guessing.

Another week on and we're still just following as Rangers continue their journey into the unknown.

Tuesday, March 06, 2012

SPL: Reach for the Sky

Some interesting discussions today around the SPL TV deal.

Would the rest of the clubs vote with their bank accounts and go easy on Rangers to preserve their income from Sky and ESPN?

Perhaps. Or so some of us thought.

One of the reasons we thought that was because we we were told:

"But it has never been feasible to have 16, 18 or 20 because you automatically mean going to one home game and one away. We think that will take £20m per season out of Scottish football in terms of lost gate and TV revenue.

"One of the conditions of this deal — as with all major sponsorships — is that Celtic and Rangers remain in the league. It is also a condition that they play each other four times a season. That’s been with us for the entirety of the current deal and before that with Setanta."

"There is no room to manoeuvre in terms of expanding. Fourteen teams might potentially work in terms of having a split league and retaining four Old firm games. Maybe. That would be feasible."

These quotes are from Neil Doncaster in November 2011.

That's Neil Doncaster, SPL chief executive. Someone who you might expect to know the details of such a deal.

Yesterday we were told:

"The current contract, which comes to an end this season, says Rangers and Celtic must play each other four times a season. That’s in line with most of our large contracts – our title sponsors are the same. That’s no different from any other league with its biggest clubs.

"What will be in the next contract from the summer to be seen. You do a deal originally in a short-form agreement and then the long-form agreement follows that later on.

Who told us this?

Why, it's Neil Doncaster, SPL chief executive. Someone who you might expect to know the details of such a deal.

The more hysterical among us have been happily chirping about the lies and myths propagated by the mainstream media.

There might be horses in the mainstream media. But on this occasion they were led to the water and forced to drink.

My view:

It suited Doncaster to dwell on the four game stipulation in November when he thought the biggest brickbat thrown at his deal would be the way it rode roughshod over dreams of an SPL expansion.

In March, now that he's been dragged kicking and screaming into the current crisis at Rangers, he's had to change tact.

He doesn't know where this will end up but he's got to try and protect the league as best he can while dealing with gargantuan mismanagement at best and over a decade of cheating at worst.

"You do a deal originally in a short-form agreement and then the long-form agreement follows that later on."

The long and the short of it? How binding is the "short-form agreement". What wriggle room will Sky have - and I suspect they'd want to wriggle right out of the room - in negotiating the details of the "long-form agreement."

We still don't know.

What Doncaster - and the clubs - will know is that viewing figures, when you drill down beyond the headline figures the SPL like to spout and look at audience profiles in the way TV executives and media buyers need to do, suggest that the SPL product isn't all that attractive. With or without four Old Firm games a season.

Does that mean the SPL becomes the Rangers Preservation League. Maybe, maybe not. But whatever Doncaster said yesterday it will remain a consideration for some clubs.

Here's another Doncaster quote:

"What will happen in the future? I never predict anything in football."

He displayed his true talent yesterday. He spoke and he spoke but he really said nothing at all.

Sources:

Daily Telegraph
Daily Record
The Guardian

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Saturday, March 03, 2012

Celtic: Winning their way

A staggered weekend fixture list gives Celtic the opportunity to go 23 points ahead at the top of the SPL tomorrow.

23 points. Maybe only for a few hours having played a couple of games more. But 23 points?

At one stage this season, with similar quirks of TV scheduling handicapping them, they found themselves 15 points behind Rangers.

Quite a turnaround. If David Cameron had pulled off a swing like that he wouldn't have to keep inviting Nick Clegg round to Downing Street for sherry and uncomfortable chit-chat.

No, it's been a remarkable couple of months for Celtic.

"But wait," cry some. "If Rangers hadn't been docked ten points things wouldn't be so simple."

True. If Rangers hadn't been docked 10 points what is currently a 35 point turnaround would only be a 25 point turnaround.

Ignore for a minute the problems at Rangers and appreciate just how Neil Lennon has transformed a season that looked - at 3-0 down to Kilmarnock on 15 October - like it was spiralling towards disaster for Celtic and a sacking for their manager.

Celtic haven't lost to domestic opposition in the 23 league and cup games since their Rugby Park comeback. Only Hibs have stopped them scoring in the SPL, only Atletico Madrid have beaten them in all competitions.

This isn't just a team doing the sensible thing and making the most of their main opponent's weakness. This is a team breaking records, focussing on a treble and smashing their way past the opposition.

It's a remarkable run that doesn't deserve any addendum about rivals reaping the bitter harvest of their own folly.

As Scott Johnston pointed out on thefootyblog.net this week, Kilmarnock have played a role in this SPL. They've beaten Rangers home and away.

They looked to have Celtic beaten. But Celtic found something, they came back, they got a draw. That was the platform they needed, proof - maybe for themselves as much as anyone else - that here was a team equipped to cope, a team to survive and a team to thrive.

What of the manager? There were those - and, yes, I might have been among them - who thought that Lennon would struggle to guide Celtic to the points total that so nearly won them the title last season.

Yet with nine games to go Celtic are just 18 points off that total. They look likely to surpass it.

Last year Lennon was forced to serve an apprenticeship with Walter Smith masterminding things at Ibrox. He was also, horribly, at the centre of the storm as the mindless and the bigoted were gripped by hysteria.

He came through. He didn't win the title but he must have proved to himself that it was within his reach and that he had the strength of character to grasp the opportunities that come with the pressures of such a strangely exposed job.

This season he has survived that period of patchy form. He's survived the problems in defence that provided those of us who don't support Celtic with such merriment.

He's coaxed improvement from players - Scott Brown returning to form, Charlie Mulgrew becoming an international, the constant demands and challenges that are helping the easily distracted Anthony Stokes keep his focus and many other examples - and he's cured a failing of the past. This Celtic team can win even when they're not at their best.

What is their best? These things are relative. By their own admission Celtic aren't in the business of competing with the very best these days. But they're better, by a distance, than any of their regular opponents.

And it's a team stuffed full of potential. The realisation on the pitch of Celtic's revised ambitions as a footballing business.

I've seen them recover from a half time deficit to win 4-1 at Easter Road. And I've seen them blow Hibs away in a 5-0 thumping in the league.

Hibs were not at their own, I'll use the word advisedly, best in that 5-0 defeat. But Celtic played with a confidence and a clinical efficiency that was much improved on their perfunctory 2-0 win at Easter Road on the opening day of the season.

A team learning and improving. And a manager learning and improving with them.

The result of that is going to be a title. Perhaps even a treble.

He might not be speak about trophies not yet won but this league title is one that Neil Lennon will relish.

And one that he and his team deserve on their own merits.

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Thursday, March 01, 2012

Rangers: More questions than answers

On and on goes the saga of Rangers in administration.

We await with incredulous bemusement the latest shoulder-shrugging plea of "who? Me? Nah, it wisnae me" from the sinisterly farcical Craig Whyte.

We await, with an interest that is not entirely becoming, to find out where the administrators will wield their redundancy axe.

A piecemeal truth is emerging about what's gone on at Ibrox, about the litany of rogues that have mismanaged business above that marble staircase.

Illegality? Perhaps. Criminal proceedings might still follow.

Certainly, the verdict of the "big" tax case notwithstanding, we're building a picture of the comprehensive financial bluff that has accompanied Rangers' success in the last decade or so.

A mismanagment that set the stage for the arrival of Whyte. Selfish, greedy, a moral wasteland, the wretched small-time wideboy who saw his chance to pull off the biggest con of all.

There surely can't be a way back for Whyte, whatever the future holds for a football club that he - and others - have tainted.

What is that future?

Liquidation and a newco - and the guarantee of a Scottish football rammy the likes of which we've never seen before - must remain too close for comfort.

Prolonged administration - Motherwell's less complex, smaller financial swamp saw them mired in administration across three seasons - seems likely.

Saviours raise their heads above the parapet but the malaise is too deep for them to yet build any momentum.

Paul Murray? Dave King? Should their previous involvement with a discredited regime count against them? Should there be caution over King?

Could Rangers, whose relationship with our own tax authorities is so gloomy, afford to be "saved" by King, a man labelled a "a glib and shameless liar," "a mendacious witness" by a judge in a South African tax case?

Maybe their dance with an unkown deil has led Rangers to a place where "better the devil you know" is the only feasible way forward?

Just some of the questions that will shape an uncertain future.

Right now, other concerns present themselves.

Dunfermline have confirmed their players and staff are experiencing a delay in payment of wages.

Should that surprise us? If Scottish football produced players like it produces rumours we'd be world beaters.

But those of us party to a season long game of Chinese Whispers concerning finances at East End Park might not be wholly surprised.

That's not to say the situation was - or is - desperate. Worrying, a sad reflection on the state of the game, yes, but not necessarily disastrous.

Now though Dunfermline have fallen victim to the great crash at Ibrox.

Rangers were due the Pars £80,000. That hasn't been paid and the consequences on the cash flow in Fife have been predictably harsh.

As Rangers continue to prove that they were drowning not waving all this time, the dangers of the ripples capsizing others seems ever more real.

The Scottish Government are in talks with Dunfermline about their predicament and a House of Commons debate has heard their treatment, along with that of Hearts, Dundee United and any other footballing creditors, described as theft.

Perhaps. But it's something that must happen a lot in business, maybe ever more regularly with the current economic climate and all that.

If nothing else Rangers' woes, and their current contagion, should allow us to finally address Scottish football's great conundrum.

Football is now a business, that brings positives and it brings negatives, but the inescapable truth must be that Scottish football is, with notable exceptions, largely operating a failed business model.

Now would be a good time to prove, despite the evidence of much of our footballing history, that we can learn from mistakes and emerge stronger from periods of turbulence.

Who's man enough to stand up and lead the game - whatever fate eventually befalls Rangers - through the malaise?

The SPL have been oddly quiet as the league champions have convulsed.

It seems Neil Doncaster is a good guy when you need moderately impressive sponsorship deals spun to within an ince of their life. But not a comrade to rely on in the trenches.

Who would ever have guessed?

The SFA? Some political instinct remains in what we're told is a modernised SFA.

Rangers in crisis? Panic first, then quickly set up an independent inquiry, get a retired judge to do the job.

It shows you're aware of concerns and it offers you a wee bit time to get away with saying nothing.

Maybe an extended period of time to say nothing if the parameters of Lord Nimmo Smith's inquiry touch on evidence that might soon be used against Craig Whyte in a criminal prosecution.

Hardly a groundbreaking tactic, but if it's good enough for the chinless at Westminster it's probably good enough for the blazered at Hampden.

A wrist slapping over "fit and proper person" procedures? Probably. It's not as if anyone took the SFA's governance of that issue seriously in the first place.

But maybe there is a smoking gun that could yet see the SFA forced into regicide.

The whispers of Rangers players receiving "dual contracts" have become shouts in recent weeks. The first edition of the Scottish Sun on Sunday brought the story into the open.

No conclusive proof - although The Sun claimed documentary evidence - but another glimpse of hidden truths still to emerge.

Perhaps the verdict of the "big" tax case tribunal will shed more light on the issue.

There should be a few at the SFA getting worried.

Were the SFA negligent in registering contracts? Possibly, but it seems pretty much everyone is treated with an equal lack of care, contracts are received and registered and life goes merrily on.

But what of the new SFA President? Was Campbell Ogilive at Rangers at the time these alleged second contracts were handed out? Did he know? Did he, then, mislead the very organisation he currently presides over?

We shouldn't get carried away. Second contracts might not have been a feature of Rangers financial chicanery.

If they were Ogilivie might have known nothing about them.

Based on nothing more than our experience of recent events however, I'm prepared to think there is something in this tale.

That still wouldn't mean Ogilvie was guilty. There might not have been invisible ink on his hands.

But the SFA President is now in a position where, in a matter of weeks, he could be about to attract one hell of a stench.

That's a worry. For him and for those, myself included, who have some appreciation of what the SFA have been trying to do to drag the game forward.

Ogilvie suggested that he'd take a background role as president, a presidency designed to avoid the uncharted peaks of incompetency scaled by his predecessor George Peat.

Yet he could soon be dragged into the open and given a good kicking.

Stewart Regan, the modernising chief executive of the SFA, mentioned Hearts in the same breathe as Rangers when news of the Ibrox administration first broke.

That might have been grossly unfair on Hearts. But it jarred. Because the two clubs Ogilvie has been involved with are, funnily enough, Rangers and Hearts.

He might be no more to blame for second contracts at Rangers than he is for sundry Vladimir Romanov rants.

But, then, if he was a completely peripheral figure at both clubs what actually qualifies him, other than a longevity in glad-handing, to be president of the SFA?

A line or two in a tax case verdict and Ogilivie bashing is going to be a national sport. If - and as ever it remains an "if" - a second contract imbroglio is uncovered and linked to Ogilvie's time at Rangers - even if it's not linked directly to him - then he has to resign. The SFA can't afford to let him make any other decision.

So there we are. What is it now? Coming up for three weeks since Rangers were brought to their knees.

The future at Ibrox remains uncertain, each day answers emerge that only lead to more questions.

But already we're seeing how the actions of David Murray, Craig Whyte and other briefcase carrying muggers has cracked the veneer of financial equilibrium in an impoverished corner of Fife.

We've seen a story develop that could yet leave the president of the SFA spectacularly compromised by his past association with Rangers.

On February 14th I wrote:

"The day Rangers took a step into the unknown.


"And the day Scottish football was forced to follow them."

Rangers still don't know where they're going. For better or for worse the rest of us are still having to follow them.

Whether the road we're on leads to a brave new world or another dead end it seems certain that there will more damage done.

More damage for the guilty to explain and, depressingly, more damage for innocent bystanders to suffer.

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Sunday, February 19, 2012

SPL Today: Hibs host Celtic's party

Hibs, not so much always the bridesmaids as always the sailor-suit clad page boys of Scottish football, have some experience of hosting parties for visitors.

Rangers and Aberdeen have won league titles under the noses of a bemused and bewildered Easter Road support. It feels a bit like spending the night standing next to the fridge, alone and uncomfortable, at your own house warming party.

Today is not - officially at least, in reality this is a race that's been run - Celtic's title clinching game.

For Celtic fans though, forever enthusiastic at Easter Road anyway, today offers a reason to party like never before.

A 14 point lead in the league is one thing. Rangers losing at home to Kilmarnock yesterday is one thing.

Rangers in administration, apparently adrift on a sea of financial turbulence, a club battered by the ownership of successive rogues, that's another thing entirely.

Rejoice. And the Celtic fans surely will today.

For every 37p in the pound Rangers offer their creditors, Celtic fans will spend £10 on bunting, booze and Iceland vol-au-vents.

Will Hibs be joining them? Some might. Some won't. The Hibs fans I've spent time with this week are bemused by the scale of Rangers' woes, unsure what the future holds for Scottish football and quickly re-appraising their views on the stewardship of Rod Petrie. Never has the presence of that well groomed moustache seemed so reassuring.

Mixed emotions. And a huge sense of foreboding.

Celtic are on a 12 game winning streak in the SPL, they seem determined to win the league at the earliest possible opportunity.

Hibs are joint bottom of the league and struggle to win at home.

If there's something worse than facing Celtic at this stage of Hibs season it's probably facing Celtic when they've spent a week drawing strength from the weakening of the auld enemy.

Is there any hope?

Glimmers: Hibs are improving, Pat Fenlon's new signings have formed the core of a new team, a better team if not a finished team.

Hibs were the last Scottish team to stop Celtic winning. A 0-0 at Celtic Park in October. One of those "how the hell did he do that?" results that sporadically punctuated Colin Calderwood's "I'm not waving, I'm drowning" management.

Celtic win, win and win again. But they don't always look irresistible.

And the most alluring scripts often deliver a twist. Yesterday the stage was set at Ibrox for Rangers to draw strength from the stands. They failed, the show of defiance tapered away in a meek surrender to Kilmarnock and, reportedly, a support blowing their chance, seeking solace in their Cromwellian songbook.

Kilmarnock were the party poopers at a wake. Is that easier or harder than the task Hibs face today?

Easier, I suspect, because this Celtic team is very different animal to the current, inferior incarnation of Rangers.

I am by nature a pessimist. I don't see a half glass full, I see a glass that's probably still got a lipstick stain on it.

Hibs have a hell of a task today. For this observer at least, it would be nice, just this once, if they could find it in themselves to rain on someone else's parade.

> Before festivities get going in Leith Aberdeen host St Johnstone.

St Johnstone were befuddled as Dundee United blew them away last weekend and bemused after Hearts knocked them out of the Scottish Cup on Tuesday.

They remain fifth but Aberdeen are chasing them. Eighth, but on something of a roll, they could go sixth today and have both St Johnstone and Hearts in their sights.

I saw the new, improved Aberdeen draw 0-0 with the new, improved Hibs last week. It was a much better game compared to the clash the two had at Easter Road in September.

Same result though. 0-0. Which may show the ephemeral nature of "making an improvement" in this dysfunctional league of ours.

A draw today. A draw that won't delight anyone but won't really depress anyone either.

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