Ian Maxwell has apparently given the Ibrox Tribute Act permission to take the SPFL to court for costs and an apology over the Cinch sponsorship deal.
This morning Keith Jackson revealed in the Daily Record that Maxwell and SFA President Mike Mulraney had met up with John Bennett and James Bisgrove to try and resolve past disputes.
Jackson added that a resolution to the Cinch dispute could also be on the cards but tonight The Herald revealed a resolution very unlike the one that the Daily Record was hinting at:
Herald Sport understands that at the time of the ratification of the Park’s contract, the SPFL indicated they would provide an apology to Rangers and Park’s Motor Group and consider paying the legal expenses incurred by the club in contesting their position.
However, no such apology nor financial compensation has been forthcoming, leading the Rangers board to lose patience with the SPFL, and they are now ready to launch legal proceedings imminently with the blessing of the Scottish FA.
It is understood that if a statement including a formal apology and costs are offered to Rangers, they will be happy to finally draw a line under this particular matter, but such a public climbdown would prove embarrassing to Doncaster and may lead to questions around his handling of the deal from stakeholders.
With legal expenses already running into hundreds of thousands of pounds for both the SPFL and Rangers, the dispute over the deal – worth roughly £1.5m a season – may end up ultimately costing the league a hugely significant portion of that revenue.
UEFA bans football clubs from taking outside legal action but with the backing of the SFA the SPFL look to be in deep trouble.
It now looks like Doncaster could be in serious bother for continually caving in to the Ibrox club.
Any other club failing to comply with a sponsorship deal would be fined with further sanctions applied if they failed to go along with the deal agreed by the SPFL collectively.
Having created and pushed through the Five (Six) Way Agreement of 2012 Doncaster is in a very vulnerable position, if he dares stand up to the Ibrox club by applying the rules of the organisation the CEO of the SPFL could find damaging claims about him being leaked out.
As part of caving in to Douglas Park the 11 other SPFL Premiership clubs had to take on additional coverage for Cinch.
If they are successful in this then at least one good thing may come of it; we could be finally shot of that weasel Doncaster. He has done nothing for the game in this country.
Keith Jackson writing everything in the garden is rosy fairytales again on behalf of the club he used to play for
A bull sh*tter absolutely stealing a wage
I’ve said all along the ONLY club Sevco can’t hurt financially is the trophy hoovering club fae parkhead……
HH
Call their bluff the last thing sevco need is for the five way agreement to be published which is what the rest of us are asking for.
If they get rid of Doncaster who will fill in the vacuum?
Secco will continue to ride roughshod over the other 11 Clubs as they seek their ‘entitled’ preeminence in the game. They will vote against every candidate until the get one they can control and there will be plenty of willing candidates.
As far as the issue about Park’s supposed pre-existing contract with Sevco that’s a load of mince. He took the huff about having to advertise a competitor to his own business, nothing to do with Sevco and the SPFL’s contract with Cinch. If he had a Contract with Sevco he should have recused himself of the Chairmanship as it was a conflict of interest. If he had a pre-existing contract with Sevco when did it commence? Did it appear in previous yearly accounts and if so what services did it cover? When was the contract notarised? Which lawyers were involved, I.e. did Park and Sevco use separate Lawyers or did they use the resident ibrokes legal genius that’s had them perpetually in Court defending egregious acts of Contract breaking on several continents.
I doubt that an ‘exclusive’ contract existed between Park and Sevco. There was no need for the exclusivity clause as everyone in the Scottish Car Trade was aware of the relationship between Park and Sevco and would not have even considered intervening and competing in that relationship. The problem only appeared when the SPFL signed a contract with Cinch, a UK wide Operations. As far as I am aware Sevco signed off on that deal.
I think Park’s issues only really kicked off during the Covid years when the Car Trade in particular took a serious hit, throw in the post Brexit uncertainty, supply chain issues and the general depressed state of the economy and Park after a number of years heavily subsidising Sevco was watching his ‘Pension Pot’ disappearing and took umbrage at having to provide ‘Sponsorship Services’ for a larger UK wide competitor.
If there truly was a Contract with Sevco that had this ‘exclusivity’ clause and it pre-dated the Cinch deal why did Park as Sevco Chairman sign off on that deal when it was presented by Doncaster to the SPFL team members and why did Park not raise the issue of his ‘ exclusivity’ agreement between him and Sevco? Furthermore why didn’t Sevco and or Park provide a copy of the prior Contract between themselves and duly notarised on a date prior to the Cinch deal. They didn’t even need to disclose the full terms of the contract only the ‘exclusivity ‘ clause and the date it was notarised.
I think Doncaster and the SPFL should call their bluff and if successful Sevco should be hammered.
Scottish Football has been hampered since 2012 by Sevco under successive leaderships trying to re-assert their imagined leadership role in our League and ‘making friends on their journey through the Leagues’ while settling scores on the way.
This Leadership status does no stand up to scrutiny even for the deceased Club. Since the 1960.s the only decade they outperformed Celtic was the 90’s. A period we now know as the EBT Years and the cheating that went on. The subsequent 5 Way Agreement in 2012 is treated by Sevco as a ‘Joker’ or ‘ get out of jail free card’ to blackmail the SPFL Board into inactivity. The rest of Scottish Football, not Celtic, have got to get to grips with this issue of the Survival / Victim mythology and hold Sevco to account or now that they are in the Premier League we are going to have this issue of them trying to throw their weight around to the detriment of all Scottish Clubs and wider Scottish Society on a perpetual basis
If they are not stopped then we need not worry about future contracts because there won’t be any that are worthwhile. It’s no secret that the SFA can’t get a Sponsor for their National Showpiece Tournament. No credible Organisation wants to be associated with them. Their corruption and amateurism is legendary. The Clubs are going to have to deal with both Sevco and the SFA or the Professional game is well and truly Fluxed. It can’t go on in its present format without major surgery.
Excellent post ! – I doubt Doncaster is one of ‘them’ as such, However a few years of governance in the murky and dark sludgey waters of Scotland fitba could easily turn and twist his head…
If they oust him and they clearly wanna do that – then rest assured the replacement for him will be – as sure as night follows day – ‘one of them’
Maxwell at The SFA will be one of them but will hide behind the veneer of ‘Partick Thistle’ no doubt !
All excellent points, and exactly the kind of questions a properly functioning non-biased media would be asking in any other country. I don’t know who would replace Doncaster but hopefully someone who could make a better fist of standing up to the scum instead of caving to their every demand, which he did repeatedly likely due to them threatening him with “We’ll tell a’body what you put in the 5WA and it’ll ruin ye!”.
Obviously it would be preferable to have a root-and-branch clear-out of the entire hierarchy of football in Scotland but that’s never happening. At least get someone not taitned by association with the 5WA, someone who doesn’t continually sell the game short when it comes to TV/sponsorship deals and who might have the balls to say no to Sevco and stick to their guns…hey, I can dream, right?
Outstanding post JimboH, all relevant points expertly elucidated! Doncaster should screen grab your post and pass it to his legal team! As you so eloquently point out the time is well past when the rabble at Ibrox were called to account for their continuing troublemaking, time wasting & financial vandalism. Its time for the other eleven clubs to band together and speak with one voice on this putting Park & co firmly back in their box, lock it and throw away the damn key!
Have theRangers EVER wona court case….?? ?
I think the nearest they’ll have been to winning a court case would be in the case of a tennis court…
I think they have a supporter who won the disabled doubles at Wimbledon court at some point (Sevco fan or no Sevco fan, kudos to him and his doubles partner on overcoming their disabilities to compete and win) representing Scotland…
So they have at least one kinda celebrity supporter at least – but certainly not too many thankfully !
But no doubt if Sevco used his fame from the ‘court’ they’d insist he ditch his Scottish representation and be seen at their bastion of bigotry wrapped in a Butchers Apron –
Devils you know V Devils you know. Which Devil do you trust?
SFATHENADIROFCHIFTINESS
Excellent post
IMO the park contract was probably in the same file as the China clubs bid file
Let the courts decide, will All depend on who lies best