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Doncaster hits out at Scottish Government while the SPFL cover their secrets

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Image for Doncaster hits out at Scottish Government while the SPFL cover their secrets

The secretive, unregulated nature of Scottish football has come back to bite with Neil Doncaster pleading on Radio Scotland for a bail-out from the Scottish Government.

No matter what case they try to put up the SPFL and SFA are two members only organisations that provide minimal transparency and accountability.

At a time of national crisis there are many other organisations deserving of financial aid ahead of two groups that prefer to do things their own way.

While smaller community clubs can make a deserving case for support it becomes difficult when they are in the same category as a club that posted losses of £15.9m and reacted by spending £10m on players from Belgium and Switzerland.

The SFA have had various opportunities to bring clubs into line with Financial Fair Play models operating across European football.

Over the last 20 years HMRC have lost out on millions of pounds with Rangers going into liquidation while Hearts, Dundee (twice), Livingston, Motherwell and Dunfermline have defaulted with Hector missing out on millions of pounds.

Next week crowds of 2,000 will return to many grounds in England while the Westminster Government has allocated £300m to be distributed across English sport.

The Scottish Government has been reluctant to discuss matters with the Joint Response Group for Scottish football with just 300 fans allowed inside the football grounds in the Highlands.

Covering Doncaster’s appearance on Radio Scotland this afternoon, the Daily Record reports:

We’re all in the UK and we are extremely conscious of the fact that in Scotland, unlike in England where they have a number of other revenues, it really is about fan income.

60 per cent of all income coming into the game is generated by fans, that’s the highest proportion of anywhere in Europe. So we’re totally dependent on fans coming back in, or in the absence of fans, funding from the Government. And unlike other countries where they’ve received direct funding from their Governments, we haven’t.

You’ve got £300m has been given to English sport from the UK Government, the Northern Irish executive recently provided £25m to Northern Irish Sport, Welsh clubs have received direct government funding, and our clubs have received absolutely nothing.

Again, we haven’t had a response to the letter, which is disappointing. We are keen to engage, we believe football can be not a problem, but actually part of the solution.

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Tomorrow Douglas Ross will be an assistant referee at the Celtic v Ross County Betfred Cup match. It will be the seventh weekend appointment in Glasgow for the leader of the Scottish Tories who represents the Moray constituency at Westminster.

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