Albion Road: Risk and opportunity

As promised I've made a swift return to the halcyon pages of Albion Road.

This week I'm taking a look at the outstanding SPL issues of the season as four go mad for Europe and two are driven crazy by relegation pressure:

Just five games left now in the 2011/12 SPL season.

The rather artificial construct that sees the league fracture into a top and bottom six clubs just a few weeks from the finish line runs the risk of creating something of an anti-climatic SPL conclusion.

That risk is heightened when, as with Celtic this year, the title is done and dusted with a handful games to spare.

We're left searching for alternative distractions. This season an intriguing battle for Europe and a prolonged relegation struggle should be enough to keep interest alive.

At the bottom we wonder just how good a season could this yet be for Hibs?

Remarkably it could be one of their best since their league-winning glory days in the 1950s.

Remarkable because for the largest chunk of this season Hibs have been a weak impersonation of a top flight football club.

Read the whole article here

I'll be back on Albion Road in May with a round-up of the SPL season. And I might even take a look back at the Scottish Cup final.

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Talking balls

Delighted to be back on theFootypod this week with host Scott Johnston, regular guest Brent Artema and indefatigable blog/pod main man Simon Furnivall.

Topics included the Champions League semi finals, cups north and south of the border, Saturday night's El Clasico and some brief thoughts on the long, drawn out saga of league reconstruction in Scotland.

We also took the chance to pick our all time English Premier League XI which, in my case, owed much to Denis Law, alcoholism and an erstwhile member of Girls Aloud.

Get your ears on it through iTunes or have a listen right here

• Find Scott @thefootyblognet and www.thefootyblog.net
• Brent tweets @GFT_Brent and takes control of www.globalfootballtoday.com
• Simon is on Twitter @SFurnivall and is the creative mind behind lovelyleftfoot.com and www.hamiltoncrescent.net

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England: 20 years of riches

It's 20 years now since football started.

That seems to be the unspoken claim amid the marketing hype marking two decades of the English Premier League and TV revolution ushered in by Rupert Murdoch's Sky.

While the English top flight celebrates like history never existed before 1992, our own game is down in the dumps, mired in debt, penury and recrimination.

So here's a timely infographic looking at turnover, debt and income in the English Premier League.

Interesting stuff.

Full size

Infographic courtesy: www.trophystore.co.uk

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Scottish Cup: Edinburgh's big day

As Craig Beattie set off on his mad celebratory dash around the Hampden track on Sunday the realisation dawned: not without controversy, perhaps, but Hearts were on their way to an unlikely all-Edinburgh Scottish Cup final.

Unlikely because Hearts went into the semi-final against SPL champions Celtic as underdogs. Unlikely because Hibs have suffered such misery and woe over the course of this long, hard season.

Unlikely but now very, very real.

Hibs v Hearts in the Scottish Cup final. The first Edinburgh derby Scottish Cup final since 1896.

I was asked a lot in the hours between Hibs’ 2-1 win over Aberdeen and the second semi final if I’d prefer Hearts or Celtic in the final.

“I’d rather just enjoy the moment and worry about the final later” was my standard response.

How do I feel now?

Nervous. Already. The minute Hearts’ win over Celtic was confirmed I felt as nervous as I would have if the final had been half an hour away rather than five weeks away.

I can’t remember feeling like that so far in advance of any game. Maybe before the Scotland v England clashes of 1996 and 1999 or when the draw for the 1998 World Cup pitted Jim Leighton against Ronaldo.

But even those games were different. Because this is Hibs and Hearts in a Scottish Cup final.

It’s been playing on mind since. On the train today I found that “Garry O’Connor, he’s one of our own” ditty trapped in my head. Those of you have charted my relationship with O’Connor over the course of the season might realise that sort of behaviour is out of character.

Predictably we’ve already had a full airing of the “Murrayfield or Hampden” debate. Murrayfield’s size and location offer benefits.

But have many Hibs fans dreamt, over the course of this tortuous 110 year Scottish Cup jinx, of seeing a green and white clad captain raise the old trophy at the home of Scottish rugby?

Probably not.

So Hampden it is. The chance of a first ever Scottish Cup win for Hibs at the “third Hampden.” Their 1887 win came at the second incarnation of the national stadium while the 1902 victory over Celtic came at Celtic Park with a new Hampden being built on its current site and Ibrox out of use following the disaster of April that year.

The 1896 “Edinburgh” cup final was played in the capital. But Hearts won that day at Logie Green so I’m unimpressed by the precedent.

Oddly enough the club’s had fought against that decision and lobbied for a switch to either Hampden or Ibrox because:

"It was accepted that the 22,001st man who entered the ground would stand an even-money chance of being crushed to death. The man in the street was in no hurry to die at one shilling admission."

Changed days.

With the venue debate dismissed by a cursory SFA statement - actually a rehash of a statement made on the very same issue at the end of last week - we can concentrate on the build-up.

Sort of.

Along the way Hibs need to confirm their SPL status and Hearts will still fancy a run at the vacant Champions League spot.

Yet even such important matters of league housekeeping are unlikely to dampen enthusiasm for the cup final. Nor will they distract the queue of Hearts fans itching to tell me the game is already won or their equally bombastic brethren among the Hibs support prematurely claiming bragging rights.

I’d prefer it all to be a bit calmer. In fact, I’d love to disappear for a few weeks then magically reappear in Glasgow at about 2.55pm on Saturday 19th May. Not least because five weeks of nervousness is likely to leave me with a ticker too dicky to cope with the strains of the game.

But that’s not an option.

So I’ll need to embrace the Edinburgh Evening News - current cup final state: feverish - and the TV and radio chats, the stories of derring-do as sons and daughters of Leith and Gorgie abseil down Kilimanjaro and cross the Andes on a yak to get back for the greatest game these two clubs haven’t yet seen.

I might as well enjoy it.

A lifetime of supporting Hibs is a vicissitudinous enough love affair to allow one to build the resilience to cope with whatever is flung at us on this day of destiny.

No point, then, worrying about a defeat that might never come.

Not when there are dreams of glory unsurpassed to be dreamt, not when there are hats, wigs and commemorative t-shirts to be bought, tickets to be queued for, travel plans to be finalised and a few more dreams of glory to be dreamt.

Edinburgh might never have seen anything like it. Who knows, maybe at 4.45pm on that Saturday in May even the Jenners tannoy will burst into life and tell any straggling shoppers that the “champions of Edinburgh are...”

Ninety minutes from immortality and joy unconfined. Or an hour and a half from infamy.

And five weeks before all that to revel in it, to soak it all up, get picked up and carried along on a wave of enthusiasm.

It’s going to be quite something. And, if all else fails, drink will probably take care of those lingering nerves.

Source:

• The Scotsman, 27/03/2006

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Scottish Cup: Aberdeen v Hibs

After a week of shrieking SPL outrage, the weekend positively bristles with anticipation and longing.

All eyes are on Hampden.

All stout Scottish footballing hearts are surely longing for an outbreak of football amid the stressful stramashes of the last couple of days.

I imagine there are but few people in Scotland who don't share the view that the ideal scenario for this season's Scottish Cup is for Hibs to beat Aberdeen today before going on to beat Hearts in May's final.

There's the romance you need right there. The magic potion to salve the wounds of a game that has been left feeling distinctly grubby.

110 years of of anguished despair ended by a ragbag collection of loan stars and short-term contracts.

Hollywood would come knocking for the film rights. Hibs and the Scottish Cup meet The Mighty Ducks.

Or maybe that's just me.

The reality is that Hampden is not a happy hunting ground for Hibs.

On my first visit to the national "stadium" - please note, young 'uns, that misty-eyed nostalgia about the Hampden of old ignores the shithole it had become by the 1980s - Alex Ferguson's Aberdeen demolished Hibs 3-0 in the 1985 League Cup final.

Sort of set the tone.

In 2000 a Scottish Cup semi-final took the two clubs to Hampden for a 6.15 kick-off one Sunday evening.

A crowd of little over 20,000 saw a Hibs team featuring the masterful Franck Sauzee and the majestic Russell Latapy undone by Andy Dow, a man who was typically neither masterful nor majestic.

Memories are made of this.

Fair to say that this Scottish Cup semi-final glistens in the gloom of the season so far for both Hibs and Aberdeen.

If SPL life has been uninspiring at Pittodrie it's been woefully incompetent at Easter Road.

That makes this a rather unlikely semi-final and certainly not one that you would have predicted after watching the three previous games between the two this season.

A Scott Vernon penalty - a disputed penalty at that - is all that separates them after 270 minutes of mediocrity.

Mediocrity might in fact be a charitable description of the 0-0 draw at Easter Road in September, a game that will fancy its chances in the always hotly contested "Worst SPL Game of the Season" award.

So there it is: Hampden history suggests an Aberdeen win and recent history suggests a game that will live short in the memory.

It probably won't be as simple as that.

Hibs discovered a hitherto unseen resilience to beat Inverness a couple of weeks ago and improved on that performance in drawing with Motherwell last Sunday.

Aberdeen stopped a run of seven league games without a win last weekend as they secured a clean sweep of SPL victories over Dundee United.

Fluctuating form makes this a hard one to predict. Toiling in the league, both clubs have plotted and plugged their way through the cup draw.

A semi final is a nice bonus, a Scottish Cup final has the potential to turn a poor season into a good one.

Right now I'd take an 89th minute winner being deflected into Aberdeen's net off Garry O'Connor sizeable rump.

That's the fan talking though.

Searching for some vestige of neutrality I have to say this one looks too close to call.

Hibs have looked like a shadow of a football team at times in 2012 but they've still managed to get the job done in the cup.

Aberdeen, slightly fully figured but not in the most robust of footballing health, have struggled to make the most of any superiority they have over Pat Fenlon's team.

Fag paper margins, the difference between a cup final - and possible European qualification - and the anonymity of being losing semi finalists.

A big day for the managers. As Craig Brown has strived to find a working formula at Aberdeen he's been forced to watch the Motherwell team he deserted thrive.

Pat Fenlon has found the misery at Hibs seeping like damp through the fabric of the club. It can't have taken him long to realise that he needs to transform the whole attitude of Easter Road as much as he needs to transform the team.

Both will know what a big deal a Scottish Cup final or, whisper it, a Scottish Cup win would be for their clubs and what a boost it would be for their standing among supporters.

Oddly Fenlon, the younger man by close to three decades, has more experience at the business end of tournaments and more of a track record in sealing the silverware deal.

Will that mean anything on Saturday?

Probably not.

But woe betide any player on either side who doesn't grasp just what this game will mean to his manager or the fans.

There's of a throwback feel to a Hibs v Aberdeen semi final. A big chance to recapture a hint of past glories in forgettable seasons.

May the best team win.

Or, of course, Hibs.After a week of shrieking SPL outrage, the weekend positively bristles with anticipation and longing.

All eyes are on Hampden.

All stout Scottish footballing hearts are surely longing for an outbreak of football amid the stressful stramashes of the last couple of days.

I imagine there are but few people in Scotland who don't share the view that the ideal scenario for this season's Scottish Cup is for Hibs to beat Aberdeen today before going on to beat Hearts in May's final.

There's the romance you need right there. The magic potion to salve the wounds of a game that has been left feeling distinctly grubby.

110 years of of anguished despair ended by a ragbag collection of loan stars and short-term contracts.

Hollywood would come knocking for the film rights. Hibs and the Scottish Cup meet The Mighty Ducks.

Or maybe that's just me.

The reality is that Hampden is not a happy hunting ground for Hibs.

On my first visit to the national "stadium" - please note, young 'uns, that misty-eyed nostalgia about the Hampden of old ignores the shithole it had become by the 1980s - Alex Ferguson's Aberdeen demolished Hibs 3-0 in the 1985 League Cup final.

Sort of set the tone.

In 2000 a Scottish Cup semi-final took the two clubs to Hampden for a 6.15 kick-off one Sunday evening.

A crowd of little over 20,000 saw a Hibs team featuring the masterful Franck Sauzee and the majestic Russell Latapy undone by Andy Dow, a man who was typically neither masterful nor majestic.

Memories are made of this.

Fair to say that this Scottish Cup semi-final glistens in the gloom of the season so far for both Hibs and Aberdeen.

If SPL life has been uninspiring at Pittodrie it's been woefully incompetent at Easter Road.

That makes this a rather unlikely semi-final and certainly not one that you would have predicted after watching the three previous games between the two this season.

A Scott Vernon penalty - a disputed penalty at that - is all that separates them after 270 minutes of mediocrity.

Mediocrity might in fact be a charitable description of the 0-0 draw at Easter Road in September, a game that will fancy its chances in the always hotly contested "Worst SPL Game of the Season" award.

So there it is: Hampden history suggests an Aberdeen win and recent history suggests a game that will live short in the memory.

It probably won't be as simple as that.

Hibs discovered a hitherto unseen resilience to beat Inverness a couple of weeks ago and improved on that performance in drawing with Motherwell last Sunday.

Aberdeen stopped a run of seven league games without a win last weekend as they secured a clean sweep of SPL victories over Dundee United.

Fluctuating form makes this a hard one to predict. Toiling in the league, both clubs have plotted and plugged their way through the cup draw.

A semi final is a nice bonus, a Scottish Cup final has the potential to turn a poor season into a good one.

Right now I'd take an 89th minute winner being deflected into Aberdeen's net off Garry O'Connor sizeable rump.

That's the fan talking though.

Searching for some vestige of neutrality I have to say this one looks too close to call.

Hibs have looked like a shadow of a football team at times in 2012 but they've still managed to get the job done in the cup.

Aberdeen, slightly fully figured but not in the most robust of footballing health, have struggled to make the most of any superiority they have over Pat Fenlon's team.

Fag paper margins, the difference between a cup final - and possible European qualification - and the anonymity of being losing semi finalists.

A big day for the managers. As Craig Brown has strived to find a working formula at Aberdeen he's been forced to watch the Motherwell team he deserted thrive.

Pat Fenlon has found the misery at Hibs seeping like damp through the fabric of the club. It can't have taken him long to realise that he needs to transform the whole attitude of Easter Road as much as he needs to transform the team.

Both will know what a big deal a Scottish Cup final or, whisper it, a Scottish Cup win would be for their clubs and what a boost it would be for their standing among supporters.

Oddly Fenlon, the younger man by close to three decades, has more experience at the business end of tournaments and more of a track record in sealing the silverware deal.

Will that mean anything on Saturday?

Probably not.

But woe betide any player on either side who doesn't grasp just what this game will mean to his manager or the fans.

There's of a throwback feel to a Hibs v Aberdeen semi final. A big chance to recapture a hint of past glories in forgettable seasons.

May the best team win.

Or, of course, Hibs.

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Ross County: Job Done

Purple-faced and incandescent, a collective paroxysm settled on Scotland this week.

Faced with a big decision the SPL scurried to find solace in their default selfishness and proposed voting to save their own souls, even if it meant trampling over the women and children in the rush to the lifeboats.

The result was a set of SPL proposals that pleased nobody and sent blood pressure soaring across the country.

Oddly, for an organisation so hellbent on maximising its commercial potential, the SPL's approach to marketing borders on the masochistic.

You'd kick them even harder and more often if you didn't suspect they must secretly enjoy it.

Sadly our preoccupation with who may or may not be playing in next season's SPL risked overshadowing the achievement of a team who most certainly will be playing SPL football next season.

Congratulations, then, to Ross County.

It's 18 years since County joined the Scottish Football League.

18 years. It's not been a meteoric rise. It's been steady: progress, the odd setback, a Scottish Cup final. All building towards the ultimate goal of promotion to the SPL.

A goal achieved this year by the simple expedient of having the strongest squad in the First Division.

And, in Derek Adams, a manager who could get the best out of them.

A second chance for Adams and one that he's grabbed.

It wasn't that long ago that he was leaving Dingwall and heading for Leith, unveiled as Colin Calderwood's assistant at Easter Road.

Eyebrows were raised and the union proved a brief marriage of inconvenience.

If it was remarkable that the teetotal Adams wasn't driven to drink in the Easter Road madhouse it seemed even stranger that he should return to Dingwall so quickly.

Clearly, however, chairman Roy MacGregor liked what he got with Adams and absence - and travails under Willie McStay and Jimmy Calderwood - made the heart grow fonder.

Derek was back and this time there was going to be no messing about. Promotion, the unfinished business, would be delivered.

And so it has been.

County are now 30 games unbeaten. On Wednesday a 3-1 win at Ayr put the seal on a title that had been delivered by a Chris Higgins equaliser for Queen of the South at Dundee 24 hours earlier.

18 years is a long time. The last eight years must have felt even longer, with Inverness beating County to the SPL punch.

The waiting's now over.

New blood for the SPL and another widening of what used to be quite a constrictive Scottish footballing geography.

A time for rejoicing?

In Dingwall certainly.

Elsewhere?

It appears not everyone is in the party mood.

The litany of gripes grows: finances (I'm not currently privy to the information but the ascent seems less dramatically funded than, say, Gretna), attendances (actually very consistent - small, yes, but steady enough to plan a budget), tactics (30 games undefeated isn't to be sniffed at and success is never that dull for supporters); travel times (a bind for visiting fans, of course, but this is Scotland not Russia); they've not got a proper ground (they do, but the SPL has daft rules and a brief groundshare with Inverness, while not ideal, will allow them to satisfy the bureaucracy).

The list will lengthen.

Some of the moaning will come from aggrieved First Division rivals.

Some of it will come because many of us like a good moan more than we like a good news story. We want to be upset, it's a football thing mixed with a Scottish thing to create a thrawn contrariness that defies one to be impressed by anything. It's a common type of fitba' prickery.

And, who knows, some of it might be entirely justified, grounded in reason and fact and allowing for a good old case of "told you so" when Dingwall dreams become northern nightmares.

All that's for the future.

Right now we've got Ross County proving, while other areas of the game crash and burn, that clubs can progress through our system.

They've done that with community support, a dedicated chairman, an eye on development, a young manager who has grown in the role and some decent players. They've even given the SPL a brand new derby to look forward to.

We need more stories like this.

So congratulations and good luck to the Staggies.

Find out how promotion was won with the excellent Ross County Tactics

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Albion Road

After a hiatus caused by nothing more serious than my own predilection for procrastination, I'm delighted to be writing for the fantastic Albion Road again.

We're starting off with a look back at the SPL title race and the contrasting fortunes of Celtic and Rangers in this strange season:

So this has been a season like no other for Rangers and, by extension, for a Scottish game that has been dominated by Glasgow's big two for so long. 

Imponderables lie ahead for the Ibrox faithful and for Rangers' competitors in the SPL.
None of that should detract from the present. 

The SPL has shown that, if nothing else, it can still just about function as sporting competition: the best team have, deservedly, won the league.

Next week I'll be taking a look at the relegation and European battles ahead as the top six and bottom six head their separate ways.

Thanks, as ever, to Jeremy at Albion Road.

www.albionroad.com
@albion_road

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SPL: Fair or foul

The tranquility of my holiday haven on the Solway Coast is shattered as we come closer to answering a question that has vexed us for weeks:

What would the SPL do if Rangers took the ultimate plunge into liquidation before emerging on the other side as a "newco?"

Today an SPL statement regarding 'Financial Fair Play' shed some light on the issue:

On 30 April 2012 the SPL Clubs will consider a range of proposals to amend the Articles and Rules of the SPL. A brief description of the effect of adopting the Resolutions is provided below.

Resolution 1 proposes an increase in the sporting sanction (points deduction) on any Club which suffers or is subject to an Insolvency Event from 10 points to the greater of 15 points and 1/3 of the Club’s SPL points in the preceding season.

Resolution 2A proposes further sporting sanctions in the event that any Club undergoes an Insolvency Transfer Event (i.e. transfers its share in the SPL to a new company where this occurs because of the insolvency of the transferor) of 10 points in each of two consecutive seasons from the Insolvency Transfer Event.

Resolution 2B proposes revisions to the fee payment arrangements i.e. SPL fees to any Club which has undergone an Insolvency Transfer Event will be reduced by 75% in each of three consecutive seasons from the Insolvency Transfer Event.

Resolution 3 proposes extending sporting sanctions where an Insolvency Event is suffered by a Group Undertaking of a Member Club of the SPL (Group Undertaking is defined in Section 1161(5) of the Companies Act 2006).

Resolution 4 proposes updates and extensions to the definition of Insolvency Event in the SPL Rules.

Resolution 5 proposes updates and extensions to the definition of Insolvency Event in the SPL Articles and clarifies the process in the event that a Member which is the subject of an Insolvency Event is required to transfer its share in the Company.

Resolution 6 proposes a specific requirement in the SPL Rules that Clubs must pay their Players in terms of their Contracts of Service on due dates and places a duty on any Club to report any failure to pay its Players in a timely manner to the SPL. Failure to pay Players and / or to notify such failure to the SPL would be a breach of SPL Rules.

Resolution 7 proposes a requirement in the SPL Rules that Clubs report to the SPL any failure to make payments to HMRC in respect of PAYE and NIC (a Default Event). Any Club suffering such a Default Event will be subject to a Player Registration Embargo. Any failure to report a Default Event shall be a breach of the SPL Rules.

Resolutions 2B and 5 require the support of a minimum of 11 Clubs to be adopted; all other Resolutions require the support of a minimum of 8 Clubs to be adopted.

If adopted the amendments to the Articles and Rules will have effect from and including 14 May 2012 (the day after the last day of Season 2011/2012).

No further comment will be made in respect of these proposals until after the General Meeting on 30 April at which they will be considered by the Clubs.

So there we have it. On April 30th the 12 SPL clubs - Rangers will be represented by their administrators - will vote on the framework that would let "Rangers 2012" begin life in the SPL.

Shocked?

Perhaps.

Perhaps not.

I've argued since this whole affair blew up that the SPL - a league founded on greed and self-preservation or, if you prefer, a league founded to maximise commercial revenues - would likely find more solace in keeping Rangers close.

That has led them to this point. Of finding a way to keep Rangers in the SPL while still being seen to punish them.

The sort of compromise that Neil Doncaster will be well used to, the sort of compromise that he was an architect of when a Leeds United newco was admitted to the English Football League.

Hence a three season deduction in revenue and a two season points deduction of ten points.

Given the SPL's silence as they've ferreted away on these changes we might expect them to have been better. Immediately there appears an inconsistency in the severity of punishments being handed out for administration and liquidation.

And a ten point deduction for two seasons doesn't seem much. Half-hearted to the point of being meaningless.

It's a bad idea for the SPL to give the impression that Doncaster's drafted these changes on the back of Ralph Topping's cigar packet. But that's the impression that will linger.

Things to remember: these rule changes still need to be passed by the SPL's 12 men in suits. And Rangers are not yet liquidated, they might never be liquidated.

Still the Scottish football public is agog and aghast.

"Too lenient" cry the massed ranks of non-Rangers supporters.

"Too harsh" cry the Rangers fans.

"Badly timed" say Ibrox administrators Duff and Phelps while announcing a delay to their announcement of the preferred bidders. The interested parties are given time to digest the proposed rule changes and how they might affect their plans for the club.

Anecdotally I'm hearing a lot of people saying they'll be finished with the SPL if a new Rangers are allowed a place in the SPL under new rules.

I understand that argument but my own view will always be that I support my team not the league they play in and I will continue to do so.

I've also heard from Rangers fans arguing that they should say "screw the SPL" and join the SFL in a fit of pique.

With your club in something of a fix some humility would not go amiss. But there is an interesting theory wrapped up in the outrage: Rangers spending three seasons fighting through the league structure might actually reinvigorate the whole of Scottish football.

What we have learnt throughout this process, however, is that putting a 'For Sale' sign up outside Ibrox does not spark a rush of bargain hunters. The SPL might be flawed but I'm not sure all those interested in trying to clean up Rangers' mess would trade the top flight for the Third Division on a point of principle.

For prospective buyers it might really be a case of "SPL and sort of bust" or "SFL and completely bust."

It is likely that clubs will be voting on these changes with certain issues remaining unresolved.

The SPL will - rightly or wrongly - shrug off Rangers' outstanding tax issues by saying such matters should be dealt with by the relevant authorities not a football league.

They'll try and body swerve the morality of liquidation, of the businesses left out of pocket through Rangers' mismanagement, in much the same way.

The results of investigations carried out by the SFA and the SPL themselves might be harder to dodge.

But, if nothing else, the SPL is a refuge of the brass necked and the two faced. They'll sit out those controversies and say "actually those investigations are only relevant to the old Rangers, not this shiny, new mob we've let in to the league."

Those riders again: liquidation might not happen, the SPL clubs might not vote in favour of these proposals.

Liquidation might happen though, it might be unavoidable whatever the demands of the fans and whatever the intentions of the new owners. And the SPL might vote "yes."

We've seen today the ill feeling that will bring. And the damage it will do to the game.

I've said all along that the SPL decision makers were going to have a decision to make. A hard decision.

A decision that would cause a rammy like none we've seen before.

Nothing was decided today. But we got a glimpse of where we're headed.

That nobody is happy suggests we're on the road to a very SPL-like resolution. Please none of the people all of the time.

It's hard to see how, in the view of the paying public, the SPL can emerge from April 30th with anything other than an even more damaged product.

There remains a future for Scottish football.

It just doesn't look very bright right now.

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