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If Scottish Football Really Is Facing A Crisis, Why Are We Sending In The Clowns?

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Today The Daily Record is trailing another of its “Scottish football is in crisis” stories, again relating to this utter nonsense about a breakaway European league. At the same time, The Sun is floating a story about how representatives of the Big Five in England have had a summit meeting in the US to discuss the possibility of some kind of breakaway tournament based there.

All of this, of course, is absolute rubbish as this website has gone over time and time again.

The obstacles to any of these deals are so enormous as to be practically insurmountable, and it’s not a coincidence that they’ve all started to surface around the time of a FIFA election. That election has just been concluded and a reforming leader, Gianni Infantino, has won the Presidency.

He is the best friend of the small countries and the small clubs. He believes in football as a community sport, and not one run for, and by, the biggest sides with the most money. The idea that FIFA would ever sanction such a competition is ludicrous.

I find it especially interesting that today’s article is about the English clubs.

The Premier League is the biggest league “brand” in the sport; that five of its top clubs have allegedly met in secret (albeit with a reporter from The Sun in attendance) does nothing to help that brand.

In fact, if you want to know how serious all this is you only have to examine the attitudes of Sky and the other companies which have sunk fortunes into the English game over the past few years and who’s new contract is about to come into force.

Remember when we were being told that our own TV deal would collapse if Sevco weren’t in the top flight?

Well, if these reports were even remotely accurate English football would be on the verge of losing at least five of its top clubs to a European League …. and yet their FA is silent, the Premier League says nothing and the TV companies have barely mustered a fart.

In short, it’s garbage and everyone in football knows it is.

I’ll tell you when I start taking this seriously; when the governing bodies do.

That clearly hasn’t happened in Scotland yet, because in spite of lurid, fevered headlines about the catastrophic impact these proposals would have on our game – if all the planets aligned and this ever happened – if you believe the media the very best response we can muster is to “send in the clowns.”

Tell me this; if you really wanted to dispatch a tough negotiator to fight for the future of our game and all of its top clubs, would you really be placing your hopes in Neil Doncaster?

This man is the worst administrator in the European game.

By a distance.

He might still command the respect of the clubs – although God knows why – but not one single supporter, at any top flight side, wants him to continue in post. His continuing presence remains a stain on our game and an insult to fans.

One suspects that many of our clubs are wholly aware of his failings. If reports from two years ago are to be believed he needed Peter Lawwell holding his hand the last time he talked to the broadcasters.

I very much doubt he’s up to the task of fighting a cartel of the biggest teams in the sport, especially considering how he’s rolled over time and again for a lower league club right here at home.

The Record is also flying a kite for this Atlantic League nonsense, suggesting it’ll be discussed at the next meeting of the SPFL. Someone had better inform the SFA of that, because talks on a cross-border breakaway tournament without official sanction from FIFA or UEFA would violate all sorts of statutes and place our clubs sides and our national team on the cusp of a global football ban from top competitions.

These “Breakaway Champions League” plans allegedly involve clubs from Spain, France, Germany, Italy, England, Holland and elsewhere.

They would shatter those national associations as surely as they would impact on ours.

Where are the crisis meetings happening in those nations?

Where are the cries of panic from the other small jurisdictions?

We know the answer. Nowhere.

No-one else in European football takes this remotely seriously, except here in Scotland where it generates easy headlines and promotes a lot of un-informed speculating, especially in the press.

That our “governing bodies” are, apparently, in crisis mode over it reminds me a bit of those crazy religious sects who think the End of the World is coming.

If it was, I would hope we have a better plan for it than putting Neil Doncaster on a plane.

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