Scottish football moved closer to meltdown yesterday as three major blows hit the game.
While the Stewart Regan and Neil Doncaster deliver management style soundbites talking up the game the reality is somewhat different
CRASH- The Clydesdale Bank pull the plug on their sponsorship of the SPL- joining Tennents and CIS in withdrawing backing- leaving the division to hunt for a new sponsor in a bleak commercial environment
BANG- Once again Hearts players go with out payments after the club were forced to pay HMRC £1M- money that they had already ‘deducted’ from their employees wages in previous years
WALLOP- Dunfermline go in to painstaking detail to explain to their supporters why they will be closing the North Stand which will save the club £20,000 over the remainder of the season.
Protecting the television deals from Sky Sports and ESPN seems to be the only goal of the SFA and SPL but with a constant flow of bad news surrounding the Scottish game and sponsors pulling out left, right and centre it can only be a matter of time before the broadcasters question the product that they are showcasing.
Lurking in the background is the on-going financial crisis at Rangers with serious questions being raised about why they were issued with a licence to compete in Europe when they declared a long running unpaid tax bill in their end of year accounts.
Talk about a ten point or greater penalty for Rangers entering administration is freely discussed in interviews with players following the clubs owner Craig Whyte’s claim that administration wouldn’t be the disaster that some people are suggesting.
Until the SFA and SPL deal with the serious issues facing Scottish football a house of cards is developing that could fall to pieces on the stroke of a pen from an executive at Sky Sports.
Introducing German style financial regulations may be painful to begin with but will protect the integrity of the game rather than endure the current guessing games that supporters- and sponsors- have to put up with.
At the end of last season Kilmarnock and Motherwell lost players to Hearts purely on the promise of better wages that the Edinburgh club clearly can’t afford to play as they limp on £31m in debt for past over spending.
Explaining that this months wages won’t be paid because Craig Gordon isn’t in the Sunderland team- triggering a bonus payment- and that the club had to pay a £1m tax bill can’t be justified under any circumstances.
Paying the taxman on time or without penalty shouldn’t be up for debate with further payments based on Gordon’s appearances a welcome bonus rather than a necessity for paying the wages.
At Ibrox Steven Whittaker talked about how the Rangers players were blameless for the club’s financial problems oblivious to the fact that Nikita Jelavic was bought for £4m at the same time as a £1.8m tax bill was being ignored.
If no one at Hampden emerges showing true leadership qualities then the drip drip of bad news will continue to undermine and suffocate the Scottish game.
All the youth development plans, strategy reviews and mission statements in the world will end up in shreds if the governance of the game is undermined.
As relative newcomers to the Scottish game Regan and Doncaster have the opportunity to make an impact for the good of the game.
If things continue as they are going both men are likely to move on to pastures new with their time in Scotland a footnote on their cv as the professional game comes to terms with a financial crisis brought about by the greed of certain clubs and a total lack of accountability from the games authorities.
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The SFA has always been useless- corruption and incompetence always go hand in hand. And everyone knows that a house divided will fall down eventually.
Sad! Time for Celtic to go to England and sell themselves, their support, their huge stadium, their huge mass appeal and their history to the good folks south of the border!
The precedents there with Swansea and Cardiff, now it’s time to save the club and jump off this sinking ship where, as the model franchise, they are continuously treated like garbage!
They don’t need the lying, corruption and shady dealings anymore! Peter and Dermitt, time to sell yourselves!
It’s too late to jump ship. They dont need us, or want us.
Both Regan and Doncaster had suspect success in their previous jobs…. Norwich were on the brink of bankruptcy had been relegated twice….Regan well theres a man who gave RFC and Hearts a licence to compete in Europe while they had outstanding tax issues…. and his boss in waiting Ogilivy was at the two clubs who used EBT schemes
The Green Brigade are doing their best to ensure we go nowhere as they are to thick to realise/or don’t care the negative view of the club in England due to them!
A post completely devoid of thought for the overall landscape. Have a word with yourself eh !
Hopefully it dies soon and we might get out of here we seem to be the only team with no money worries the quicker the buns,wee buns and the rest disappear the better HH
The SFA deserve everything that’s coming to them they,ve been cheating Scottish football for years.
ALL these problems & the main things we are seeing & reading is about our fans! shocking. A hibs fan was on tv last night complaining about there lack of ambition by trying to get a league of Ireland manager & their league was the equivelant of SFL? who’s he kidding. Irish football is going forward while the Scottish game is dying a slow & painful death. I can’t wait till ‘they’ can’t afford to play their team we will probably not hear about it right enough.
Full time professional football will not exist in Scotland in 20 years time. I don’t think people realise how bad it is.
Think you just might be right Stephen but as as long as the authorities see rangers win the league that’s ok.
It would be great to go to England however as long as fans sing about the IRA they will despise us and never have us down.
Do you have the ability to think for yourself or do you just regurgitate what you hear from the red-tops ?
The ten team SPL set up is destroying the game up here.If it was a 16 team league with the likes of Raith Rovers, Ross County,Hamilton, Dundee and even Morton, there would be far more local derbies and fans attending games.
Even playing Rangers 4 times or more a season is becoming monotonous, never mind the rest of the cannon fodder.
Also, a lot of wains up here are supporting EPL teams now, because of Murdoch’s advertising (brainwashing) from his media empire ( best league in the world? my a**e! and that’s where he should be told to stick his paltry £2m a year, but as everyone knows, our CEO would likely disagree.
The problem is too many teams operating on a full time basis.This was not the case right up untill the early 1980s!!!!!!!!!
You make some excellent points here Joe. The facts have been there for a long time, but the real issues are that those in power care only about their own interests.
Corruption in Scottish football has always been rife, but never as bad as it is today. It always had to come to a head. The warning signs were there when Jim Farry had to be removed from his position of power when he was forced into admitted deliberately holding up the transfer of Jorge Cadette in order to help rangers in their quest for nine in a row.
The corruption behind that whole scenario with rangers set the tone for the blatant disregard for anyone in the Scottish game who was likely to stand in the way of rangers.
I still have my own opinions of who really was and still is behind the personal attacks on Neil Lennon, and when you consider the ouitcome of the court case against a guy who admitted everything he did in the attack at tynecastle, was seen doing it on TV, was undone by several credible witnesses, yet gets off with a not proven verdict, you get the picture of the depth of the problem in Scotland. It is a very sad country.
I lived the first 36 years of my life in Scotland before moving abroad in 1988, but my pride in being a Scot has diminished over the years, and mainly due to the rest of the world seeing at the corrupt little establishments that are taking the game to the wall.
Frankly, as much as I want to see this all change, it isn’t going to anytime soon, thats for sure. We send young men and women out to defend our country, sending them to lands of bigotry and terrorism.
Yet stand with eyes closed at the same things going on in Scotland where these same young men and women were born and raised.
The country is sad, shameful, and the bigots will fall with the rest of the decent folks.