Neil Doncaster is coming under growing attack after renegotiating the SPFL deal with cinch and claiming it to be some sort of victory.
The car hire firm will put in a reduced figure, the 11 Premiership clubs will provide increased coverage to cinch while the club from Ibrox continue to pick up cinch prize money while negotiating their own commercial deals on the sleeve, trackside and backing boards.
Unsurprisingly Celtic have made no comment as they lose out on commercial opportunities while their city rivals/business partners bring in more cash such as their sleeve deal with BOXT.
On Wednesday The Athletic covered much of that ground, last night, using his contact book Keith Jackson explains to Daily Record readers:
Record Sport understands fears are growing that the long running dispute is set to escalate with the potential for huge financial ramifications – despite last week’s announcement that the Ibrox club can continue to pocket cash from a sponsorship deal with cinch while refusing to promote the car dealer’s branding. Rangers immediately called for a meeting of all 12 Premiership clubs and a showdown with league chief executive Neil Doncaster.
With Doncaster the architect of The Five Way Agreement in 2012 the Ibrox club know that they can do as they like without any meaningful sanction from the SPFL.
Having failed to secure another job over the last decade Doncaster is well aware that he is toxic and dependent on the SPFL for an income.
Celtic’s backing has kept Doncaster in place but handing over more to cinch rather than have effective leadership and sanctions appears to be registering with other clubs.
Later the report Jackson adds:
Record Sport understands – with the value of those tie-ins potentially at risk – both Hearts and Aberdeen have asked for urgent clarification on the matter.
One worried club boss told us last night: “The whole revenue structure of the game in this country could be at stake if Rangers were effectively to opt out and go it alone.
“That’s the kind of nuclear option that most of the other top flight clubs are anxious to avoid and that’s why these talks are so significant.
“It’s already a bad situation because enormous damage is being done to the reputation of the Scottish game. It’s hard enough to attract sponsorship money in the current climate but seeing Rangers and the SPFL roll around in the mud is helping no one.
“The hope is we can finally put it all to bed and move on but the nature of the ongoing email tennis between Hampden and Ibrox suggests this dispute is, if anything, more likely to escalate than be defused.”
Future commercial deals seem unlikely with the Ibrox club having a veto due to their numerous sponsorship packages.
If Doncaster is removed it will be a significant step towards publication of the Five Way Agreement. There are a lot of vested interests in keeping that secret but since 2012 Aberdeen, Hearts, Hibs and Dundee United have new regimes in place while St Mirren and Motherwell are fan owned.
Getting that separate set of rules out in the open will go some way to freeing Scottish football from its toxic Ibrox dependency, fully supported by the Celtic board and their former CEO.
Should Neil Five Way Agreement Doncaster be sacked as CEO of the SPFL?
Yes, sack him. Horrendous in every area, rules, TV deal, sponsorship
No, he makes the best of a difficult job, great man to have at the helm
Embarrassing we seem to be rolling over on this. Gutless.
I would get the 11 clubs round the table. Agree to remove rangers from the spl for bringing the game into disrepute and costing all clubs, except them, money! Unless they honour the original deal. Or, they get no prize money! Time to fuck it into this horrible hun club.
Editor: I think you’d struggle to get that motion past Bankier, Nicholson and Desmond- they can’t see life beyond the O** F***.
This is what happens when you put beggars on horseback. The two clowns front and centre of the picture above are as much to blame. Everybody wanted the zombies dead but those two goons had other ideas.
It could only happen here.
Doncaster has just proved himself to love 1 club in the spfl because i remember Doncaster giving a interview saying that mr parks threated him but i see nothing came out of it and the old scumbag parks walks free yet again i wish the fans would boycott our football untill hampden is cleaned out top to bottom and get the corrupt cheating scum out now.
How is it even possible for one club to say fu ck off to a sponsorship deal, not promote it and still pocket money from that sponsor?
How is that even possible????
Someone explain that to me please cos I’m just not getting it.
Free Masons .
I wonder if this sort of exemption would have been offered to say Hearts, Ross County or St Mirren, if they had a similar “conflict of interest”, with regards to sponsorship?
Also, where is the the conflict of interest for Rangers? Parks do not sponsor them in any meaningful way (no shirt sponsorship etc). This is not a conflict of interest for the club/holding company/engine room subsidiary (or whichever flag of convenience they’re using in this dispute). It’s a personal conflict for Jabba The Parks and his personal car sales business, to which Cinch are a major competitor. So why do they even need this exemption?
As for still getting prize money etc and being able to flog off commercial space that the other 11 are duty bound to allocate to Cinch, that’s just taking the piss. But then this club has been doing that since it was founded ten years ago. And getting away with it.
How can a club with no money have so much power, time to move this farce forward without this lot agree with Craig Dunn.
Donkeyaster is a pwick. Its really not that complicated. If the manky mob don’t advertise cinch in the hate dome then they don’t get any of the spoils. They wouldn’t be long in putting up cinch banners everywhere even covering dougy parks advertising. Thank feck somebody at celtic had the balls to tell dougy ten chins to stick his buses up his arse