Soccer Football - Scottish Cup Final - Celtic vs Motherwell - Hampden Park, Glasgow, Britain - May 19, 2018 Celtic chief executive Peter Lawwell (2nd L) and Independent non-executive director Dermot Desmond (C) in the stand Action Images via Reuters/Jason Cairnduff
With the pressure cranked up it has been revealed that it would cost the SPFL £800,000 to dismiss Neil Doncaster, their long serving CEO.
On Monday night The Herald revealed that the SFA had given club from Ibrox permission to take the SPFL to court for legal costs from their successful battle with the SPFL to opt out of the cinch sponsorship.
Doncaster negotiated and signed that deal off, when the Ibrox club refused to take part the SPFL buckled and after a dispute they renegotiate the sponsorship package on behalf of 11 Premiership clubs.
Douglas Park has been pushing the dispute from Ibrox, around the time that Doncaster signed the deal off he renegotiated his severance terms with the SPFL agreeing to a two year pay-off if he ever leaves.
Picking up on Day Two from The Herald, Football Scotland reports:
The Herald reports this evening that the chief executive of the governing body may take a reputational hit during the Ibrox club’s expected legal claims but due to his contract situation, he is unlikely to be badly impacted in terms of his role due to the financial implications of removing him from his post.
The publication claim it would cost a staggering £800,000 to get rid of the 53-year-old due to his two year notice running on his deal. While there are no legal issues preventing this length of notice, it has been deemed uncommon.
The decision to lengthen Doncaster’s notice period to two years was- reportedly taken by the SPFL remuneration committee some time in the summer of 2021. It was in order to “mitigate the risk of losing someone the committee viewed as a key member of personnel.”
They most likely agreed to it because they don’t have a clue. Scudamore of the EPL retired in 2018 on a £500k basic for a business that at the time was bringing in over £3B revenue. His replacement; £1.3M basic from £5B EPL revenue. Doncaster tops over £400K, SPFL revenue £39M
— Jackson bow (@JedSloss) June 27, 2023
With a recorded turnover of £39,523,000 for the 21/22 season it would cost the SPFL approximately 2% of their turnover to remove Doncaster.
Recruiting a replacement on similar terms tied in to long term deals with Sky Sports and cinch is unlikely to attract high calibre candidates.
In the summer of 2012 Doncaster was the driving force behind the Five Way Agreement involving the SPL, SFA, SFL, Rangers and Sevco Scotland.
SPFL chief Neil Doncaster has accused Rangers chairman Douglas Park of being rumbled by his own dossier in today’s Record Sport pic.twitter.com/Zia7NruHdG
— Daily Record Sport (@Record_Sport) May 11, 2020
A great gig if you can get it.
Surely they can just sack him for incompetence.
Then again it seems odd that a representative of The Rangers sat on the Board to approve this deal while at the same time knowing his club wouldn’t abide by it.
By the way, has anyone noticed that our transfer activity has yet again started to move slower than a glacier since January. I wonder what changed at Celtic at that time…………………………… ..
Editor: Three words- non disclosure agreement…
Doncaster is clearly incompetent but did hold steady while suffering under intolerable evil pressure from all of the Scottish media – and some club chairpersons and chief executives who vociferously and vocally in public wanted the season we clinched our record 9 in a row for a record second time ‘culled’ and declared null and void (we haven’t forgotten you know, Ms. Budge at Hearts and Gardiner at Inverness Caley Thistle) so part of me from that perspective is happy for him to stay – and we also absolutely know that any replacement will be hand picked to suit and aid and abet Sevco more than ever…
However his biggest ever Fcuk up was stating that Sevco were the same club ‘absolutely’ – And from that moment on when our club custodians didn’t challenge it that was my season ticket gone and with it paying cash to Celtic to watch a bent and rigged competition- And even Regan said it be one for the fans to argue about in the pub forevermore and therefore didn’t endorse the victim lie like Doncaster did !
The fact that Regan, when asked the question if they were the same club, replied “If you want them to be.” tells you everything.
Whoever asked the question clearly wanted them to be the same club because there was no follow up question.
I would have asked “How can the Chief Executive of footballs governing body in this country give such an ambitious answer to a really important question ?”
“The fact that you cannot give a definitive ‘YES’ answer to the question indicates you do not believe they are the same club.”