Steven Naismith revives his anger over the 2008 SPL extended season

Steven Naismith is still bleating about the ‘injustices’ of the 2007/08 season when the SPL simply scheduled matches to suit Walter Smith’s UEFA Cup flops.

The Hearts boss was asked about Celtic’s reduced ticket allocation for Tynecastle on Sunday when e decided to harp back 15 years.

In December 2007 the SPL postponed an away match at Gretna to assist Smith’s Champions League hopes although it was to no avail with Lyon winning 3-0 at Ibrox despite 11 days of preparation between matches..

In contrast Celtic played Shakhtar Donestsk, Hearts and AC Milan on November 28, December 1 and December 4 with vital points dropped at Tynecastle.

Discussing the issues surrounding the reduced ticket allocation for Celtic fans at Sunday’s match the Hearts boss told Edinburgh News:

We could learn a lot from other leagues but we tend not to. It tends to be individual agendas. When I was at Rangers, there was congestion of fixtures when we got to the UEFA Cup final [in 2008]. This season, every team struggled through the start with Europe but the league don’t help you. That’s not the league’s fault, it’s everybody in Scottish football’s fault

For the only time in history the SPL season finished on a Thursday night with five of the top six clubs having to wait 11 days to play their final fixture to accommodate one club. A club rammed with players on secondary contracts that were deemed disguised remuneration at the Supreme Court in 2017.

Justice was done at Tannadice with Celtic winning the title on the back of an eight match winning run, the previous week Naisy watched from the stand as Zenit St Petersburg lifted the UEFA Cup.

Four years later the current Hearts boss refused to TUPE over to Charles Green’s Tribute Act, moving to Everton as a free agent.