Michael Nicholson stepped down from the board of the SPFL on Monday.
Ahead of becoming CEO at Ibrox James Bisgrove was voted onto the board less than a week after the SPFL paid out over Neil Doncaster’s botched sponsorship deal with Cinch.
In the season ahead it is unlikely that Bisgrove’s club will wear the Cinch logo on their shirt or provide trackside and backing board advertising to the car sales firm.
Stephen McGowan of the Daily Mail reports:
NEW Rangers chief executive James Bisgrove has secured a place on the board of the SPFL.
He will serve as one of seven club representatives on Hampden’s sixth floor after Rangers secured an apology over their long-running cinch sponsorship row with the league.
Replacing Celtic counterpart Michael Nicholson on a rotational basis, Bisgrove will be joined by Malcolm McPherson of Hibernian and James MacDonald of Ross County.
It has never been explained why Celtic act on a rotational basis with a club formed in 2012 by Charles Green. There is no record of a rotational relationship with any other SPFL club.
Nicholson’s friendly relationship with Bisgrove is about to be tested over Celtic’s allocation of tickets for the September 3 Glasgow Derby at Ibrox.
Last season news was leaked without any on the record comment from either club that no away fans would attend the final two Derby fixtures.
Bisgrove has struck first for the 23/24 season with his ‘olive branch’ decision leaked to media friends that Celtic will be offered 700 tickets for the September 3 match.
Nicholson will now have to decide whether or not to accept those tickets from his rotational partner Bisgrove, if he doesn’t take the tickets he then has to decide whether or not to go public with the reasons for that decision.
At the 2022 Celtic AGM the new CEO gave a very unconvincing explanation for glass being found in Joe Hart’s penalty box at Ibrox with Nicholson accepting the host club’s claim that the CCTV covering the Copeland Road Stand and goal-mouth had broken.
CCTV was able to identify the Ibrox hospitality guest that threw a glass bottle to permanently disfigure Celtic physio Dan Friel at roughly the same time.
Rangers told us there was no CCTV after Joe Hart broken glass incident at Ibrox, says Celtic CEO Michael Nicholson https://t.co/2G7sNr15w5
— Scottish Sun Sport (@scotsunsport) November 4, 2022
Tell them to Ram the tickets (Safety comes first) Sevco are the Safety Specialists. The Crumbledome isn’t safe. Hail Hail.
Two ckeeks of the same arse,let’s not kid ourselves on here the clubs are out to CHISEL as much as they can from the fans.
One hand washes the other and this PISH about ticket allocations suits both clubs,it keeps the fans at each other,and the OLD FIRM rivalry ongoing,with LIEWELL loving it.
As for Nicholson we would be better with Lord Lucan or the Invisible man at Cektic the guy has done Jackshit since he got that post,with not one interview from him since taking the seat,more like taking the piss.
Watch how Bisgrove walks all over SPFL this season just wait and see what sevco get away with this time round,with all the shitebags around him licking his arse as he calls the shots.
Oh and don’t bother complaining our club will be doing most of the arse licking.
If FIFA and uefa rules are not breached but they are alerted about a situation they ask the local FA are they satisfied with the explanation given.. In this case that’s the SFA …. the SFA must have been happy with the explanations given to them by “the rangers” for the permanent scarring of an opposing coach, glass found on the park, weapons placed to be used later, attacking opposition players by throwing objects, attacking opposition fans by throwing objects, and “NOT” being able to protect pundits reporting on the game, and t”the rangers” fans break the law of the land at every game home and away by singing banned sectarian songs…All this is done by one club “NOT” the whole of Scottish football or Scotland as a country…. the SFA must be happy “the rangers” are doing all they can to eradicate all this…… NOT
Editor: It is not just the SFA that are happy, Nicholson is quite happy sending Celtic players back to Ibrox, not a peep of concern until he was forced to comment at the AGM.
That Celtic and Sevco alternates on an annual basis to this board and not say Hibernian and Heart of Midlothian or say Dundee and Dundee United (when both Tayside teams are there) surely makes decision making ‘irregular’ –
It will certainly be ‘irregular’ in the up and coming season given the trappings on offer and required by Sevco in The Champions League in 2024/25…
Thank goodness that I no longer pay cash to watch Celtic compete in this bent and ‘irregular’ world of Scottish Football !