"It's not potential civil war. It's on."
So threatened an unnamed SPL chairman on Wednesday.
The spark of our latest top flight conflagration is a move by the SPL's non-Old Firm teams to flex their muscles.
They want changes to the leagues voting structure which, with an 11-1 mechanism kicking in on certain issues, has long been seen by many as a way of allowing the Old Firm to exert a degree of control over the rest of the clubs.
With Rangers currently stricken, the remaining clubs are also pushing for a more even distribution of revenues and the creation of an SPL2 to act as a safety mat for relegated clubs.
Apparently this hasn't gone down too well at Celtic.
Their chief executive Peter Lawell is quoted as describing the non-Glasgow cartel as "potentially divisive," saying:
"We were disappointed and we feel it disrespectful that what Celtic and Rangers bring to the game that we were excluded, having spent nearly two years and a lot of time helping to develop a strategy."
Arguably ten teams acting together and one team being unhappy while another team suffocates in a Greek-style financial crisis might be seen by some as being more democratic than divisive.
But that's not how Scottish football tends to work.And it's difficult to see how vote to abolish the 11-1 voting system would be passed, depending as it would on Celtic and Rangers being split on this. And they won't be.
When The Proclaimers ask "What do you do when minority means you?" it seems Mr Lawwell replies "go in the huff and seek succour in the company of a team I said we could live without a few weeks ago."
Intriguingly he also seems to have given us a tantalising glimpse of where Celtic might be about to head in upcoming negotiations:
"We were actually then convinced for a 14, Martin [Bain] and I, through this group because the top six would play 36 games. We would go with 14 and a top six.
"We were persuaded to go back to the ten for the greater good because the majority around the table wanted the ten. We said 10, 12 or 14, it doesn’t really matter, other than the number of games you play."
Is the hardy perennial of league reconstruction about to flower once more in the spring sunshine?
It might well be. A clever move from Lawwell if that's the case because it's sure to put the other 10 clubs on the back foot.
If they want a more even distribution of cash and power then why not go further and spread it around a 14 team league?
Largely, one suspects, the other ten clubs want the money to be shared more equally but only among themselves. All animals are created equal but some animals get to live in the SPL.
And those clubs agitating for an SPL2 would also face a dilemma. Their dream is probably two leagues of ten. A 14 team top flight would mean a minimum of 24 teams in any dual SPL structure. The share of the pie diminishes ever further.
The beauty for Celtic is that it leaves them largely unaffected in either the status quo or with two fewer games in a 14 team league. A nice bit of politicking.
All of this could very well be academic anyway, ignoring as it does the elephant in the room.
How do you solve a problem like Rangers?
The chairmen of the other 10 clubs might have found it less disrepectful than Peter Lawwell did to jettison the Ibrox administrators from a discussion on the future of the game.
But the smog of uncertainty clinging to Ibrox makes it difficult to see how long term changes can be planned while the possibility of Rangers not being in the SPL remains.
You might feel a Rangers-free SPL is a good thing, you might feel it's a bad thing. But most would probably agree that it would represent a seismic shift that would raise issues that would need to be urgently addressed.
Are the 11 clubs and Rangers' administrators set fair to address those issues at the moment?
It's unlikely that they are.
And that will probably mean that this latest SPL tit-for-tat fizzles out.
Civil war? Probably not. Just a lot of talk over a little local difficulty.
Sources:
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Showing posts with label Peter Lawwell. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Peter Lawwell. Show all posts
Friday, March 23, 2012
Monday, January 17, 2011
The SPL's Blue Monday: 10 Plus 12 Equals The Future
Blue Monday. The most depressing day of the year.
Fitting that it was today we heard another version of the SPL’s grand new plan for Scottish football.
Forget the two ten team leagues idea of a couple of weeks ago. The head honchos have listened to the near universal condemnation of that plan.
And come up with a top league of ten teams and an SPL 2 of twelve teams. A magnificent response to the weight of public opinion:
The Scottish Premier League (SPL) clubs today reaffirmed their commitment to the work of the Strategic Review Group to develop a structure for the whole of Scottish football.
Broad support was given to progressing a 10-team Premiership and a 12-team Championship at the top of a pyramid for Scottish football as the preferred option.
The SPL clubs have asked the executive team to further develop aspects of these proposals and to update the Strategic Review Group's report.
The SPL will now consult with the Scottish FA and the Scottish Football League and its clubs before a final decision by the SPL clubs.
STV report that Inverness, Hearts and Kilmarnock were the only clubs to vote for the 14 club compromise model.
So there we have it.
To listen to Neil Doncaster, SPL chief executive, this is the model that will have stadiums full to bursting, TV companies locked in a multi-million pound bidding war and the quality of football reawakening thoughts of a Scottish football golden age. And no doubt a number of postponements causes by blue snow.
It’s unclear how he expects this to happen. Nor does he seem to be able to adequately address the fears of the sheer boredom of watching your team play against the same nine clubs four times each season.
Doncaster says a new relegation model will keep the league refreshed. He ignores concerns that it will lead to clubs playing a dismal, safety first brand of football, petrified by the fear of relegation.
The only benefit of a 12 team “championship” would seem to be to deliver the SPL a majority of Scotland’s professional sides. That will make it much harder for the SFL to prevent a “merger” with the SPL.
If the 12 “championship” sides are also going to be playing each four times a season the idea of relegation/promotion play offs to keep the top flight refreshed seems disingenuous. Surely those extra eight games will favour the top flight teams going into the play-offs.
The SFA would seem pretty powerless to do anything about all this after the review they commissioned backed a ten team league. Henry McLeish has been utterly discredited by the way in which he allowed the SPL to hijack his report. Trusting a man who couldn’t run his own office expenses to save the national game was a mistake.
What will a pyramid system involve? Surely that's not just been tagged on to the proposals because it's something that a lot of people have been calling for. How is it going to work? What financial assurances will be in place for those clubs that don't make the final cut of 22?
Do we even know if this is the model that teams in, for example, in the current Third Division or in the non-professional leagues will see as the best for them to secure their futures.
And the SPL clubs?
Rod Petrie backs a ten team SPL even as he watches his Hibs side implode. It would break my heart but deliver some form of justice to this most non-footballing of men if Hibs were to start this brave new dawn in the lower division.
Peter Lawwell backs a return to the dark days of a ten team top league even as Celtic wage a war of modernisation against the SFA.
Martin Bain backs a ten team SPL even as Rangers continue to wade through a financial mire that may or may not include tax evasion.
These are just some of the people of influence who are prepared to ignore the views of the fans to chase a short term financial gain that nobody can be sure will materialise. The usual suspects with their usual blend of arrogance, self preservation and blind optimism in a get-rich-quick scheme.
I rather suspect that these men reply to emails that offer money transfers from bank accounts in Nigeria.
As someone pointed out to me today it is unusual to have such a widespread appetite for change in Scottish football. And yet somehow the SPL come up with a scheme that seems to appeal to nobody except Neil Doncaster, Ralph Topping, Henry McLeish and eight or nine SPL chairmen and chief executives.
They are prepared to fly in the face of public opinion to pursue a course of action that they are either unable or unwilling to properly explain to the fans.
We shouldn't be surprised that we are ignored. Football chairmen have being doing it for decades. But the idea that our opinions are forged in ignorance, that none of the counter proposals were championed out of a love for the game and a desire to see Scottish football improve is sickeningly arrogant and stubborn.
I don't believe fans should stop supporting their teams. I don't believe a boycott of clubs over league restructuring is necessarily a good idea.
But prices won't drop in the SPL's new era. The kick off times will still be awkward. The pressures of life will continue to crowd in on the football going habit. And I am concerned that the prospect of repetitive Premiership with tactics borne out of fear will see fans continue to drift away.
Standing at the crossroads Scottish football has, I suspect, chosen to travel up a dead end. Extricating ourselves from that folly might be beyond us.
The Scottish Football Blog News Feed
Fitting that it was today we heard another version of the SPL’s grand new plan for Scottish football.
Forget the two ten team leagues idea of a couple of weeks ago. The head honchos have listened to the near universal condemnation of that plan.
And come up with a top league of ten teams and an SPL 2 of twelve teams. A magnificent response to the weight of public opinion:
The Scottish Premier League (SPL) clubs today reaffirmed their commitment to the work of the Strategic Review Group to develop a structure for the whole of Scottish football.
Broad support was given to progressing a 10-team Premiership and a 12-team Championship at the top of a pyramid for Scottish football as the preferred option.
The SPL clubs have asked the executive team to further develop aspects of these proposals and to update the Strategic Review Group's report.
The SPL will now consult with the Scottish FA and the Scottish Football League and its clubs before a final decision by the SPL clubs.
STV report that Inverness, Hearts and Kilmarnock were the only clubs to vote for the 14 club compromise model.
So there we have it.
To listen to Neil Doncaster, SPL chief executive, this is the model that will have stadiums full to bursting, TV companies locked in a multi-million pound bidding war and the quality of football reawakening thoughts of a Scottish football golden age. And no doubt a number of postponements causes by blue snow.
It’s unclear how he expects this to happen. Nor does he seem to be able to adequately address the fears of the sheer boredom of watching your team play against the same nine clubs four times each season.
Doncaster says a new relegation model will keep the league refreshed. He ignores concerns that it will lead to clubs playing a dismal, safety first brand of football, petrified by the fear of relegation.
The only benefit of a 12 team “championship” would seem to be to deliver the SPL a majority of Scotland’s professional sides. That will make it much harder for the SFL to prevent a “merger” with the SPL.
If the 12 “championship” sides are also going to be playing each four times a season the idea of relegation/promotion play offs to keep the top flight refreshed seems disingenuous. Surely those extra eight games will favour the top flight teams going into the play-offs.
The SFA would seem pretty powerless to do anything about all this after the review they commissioned backed a ten team league. Henry McLeish has been utterly discredited by the way in which he allowed the SPL to hijack his report. Trusting a man who couldn’t run his own office expenses to save the national game was a mistake.
What will a pyramid system involve? Surely that's not just been tagged on to the proposals because it's something that a lot of people have been calling for. How is it going to work? What financial assurances will be in place for those clubs that don't make the final cut of 22?
Do we even know if this is the model that teams in, for example, in the current Third Division or in the non-professional leagues will see as the best for them to secure their futures.
And the SPL clubs?
Rod Petrie backs a ten team SPL even as he watches his Hibs side implode. It would break my heart but deliver some form of justice to this most non-footballing of men if Hibs were to start this brave new dawn in the lower division.
Peter Lawwell backs a return to the dark days of a ten team top league even as Celtic wage a war of modernisation against the SFA.
Martin Bain backs a ten team SPL even as Rangers continue to wade through a financial mire that may or may not include tax evasion.
These are just some of the people of influence who are prepared to ignore the views of the fans to chase a short term financial gain that nobody can be sure will materialise. The usual suspects with their usual blend of arrogance, self preservation and blind optimism in a get-rich-quick scheme.
I rather suspect that these men reply to emails that offer money transfers from bank accounts in Nigeria.
As someone pointed out to me today it is unusual to have such a widespread appetite for change in Scottish football. And yet somehow the SPL come up with a scheme that seems to appeal to nobody except Neil Doncaster, Ralph Topping, Henry McLeish and eight or nine SPL chairmen and chief executives.
They are prepared to fly in the face of public opinion to pursue a course of action that they are either unable or unwilling to properly explain to the fans.
We shouldn't be surprised that we are ignored. Football chairmen have being doing it for decades. But the idea that our opinions are forged in ignorance, that none of the counter proposals were championed out of a love for the game and a desire to see Scottish football improve is sickeningly arrogant and stubborn.
I don't believe fans should stop supporting their teams. I don't believe a boycott of clubs over league restructuring is necessarily a good idea.
But prices won't drop in the SPL's new era. The kick off times will still be awkward. The pressures of life will continue to crowd in on the football going habit. And I am concerned that the prospect of repetitive Premiership with tactics borne out of fear will see fans continue to drift away.
Standing at the crossroads Scottish football has, I suspect, chosen to travel up a dead end. Extricating ourselves from that folly might be beyond us.
The Scottish Football Blog News Feed
Thursday, November 23, 2006
Why England Will Always Say No
Let’s not turn Celtic’s victory on Tuesday into yet another debate about the Old Firm going down south.
We’ve had the arguments so many times it’s tiresome. Yes, on their day they can live with anyone. Yes, they’ve got a huge support.
But these factors have been constant for close to a decade. And still nothing’s happened. The truth is that however much Peter Lawwell and David Murray want it to happen it never will.
And it’s their own fault. Why would English football, with the image problem that hooliganism has caused it over the years, willingly invite Celtic and Rangers to join.
As long as their fans continue to spew vitriol out of the stands at every opportunity the Old Firm will be pariahs south of the border.
The irony is, of course, that officials at both clubs have repeatedly stuck their heads in the sand over the sectarian issue.
So for the foreseeable future Murray and Lawwell will be stuck in no-man’s land of their own making: staring wistfully at the cash cow of the Premiership but covering their ears to the reasons for their exclusion.
We’ve had the arguments so many times it’s tiresome. Yes, on their day they can live with anyone. Yes, they’ve got a huge support.
But these factors have been constant for close to a decade. And still nothing’s happened. The truth is that however much Peter Lawwell and David Murray want it to happen it never will.
And it’s their own fault. Why would English football, with the image problem that hooliganism has caused it over the years, willingly invite Celtic and Rangers to join.
As long as their fans continue to spew vitriol out of the stands at every opportunity the Old Firm will be pariahs south of the border.
The irony is, of course, that officials at both clubs have repeatedly stuck their heads in the sand over the sectarian issue.
So for the foreseeable future Murray and Lawwell will be stuck in no-man’s land of their own making: staring wistfully at the cash cow of the Premiership but covering their ears to the reasons for their exclusion.
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