According to some sections of the media, the SPFL board will today take a decision to shelve its own call for an inquiry into the events of 2009-2012. If they do they will look ridiculous. If they do they will be flying in the faces of their own fans. If they do then we’re off to the races.
If this happens then Scottish football’s leaders have turned their backs on action to save the sport.
They will have accepted the cheating of those years and the egregious bending of rules which was done to support that cheating, or to cover it up.
We know this happened, the evidence of it is piled high.
The media does not want to write it and the clubs do not want to accept it, but it is there.
And the failure to consider it is like force-feeding the game strychnine.
No-one realistically believes that ignoring this will make it go away. If the SPFL turns its back on the need for this today then questions will rightly be asked as to what changed in their position since Ann Budge and others publicly supported a review last month.
The SPFL board have apparently had their minds changed by a PR campaign, one that sought to distort Celtic’s position and the whole basis on which we were calling for this. The objective of that campaign was to isolate our club.
Lawwell has so many daggers in his back already this morning that he’ll deserve credit just for being able to sit in a chair.
We’ve been done up by Regan and certain sections of the press.
I understand why.
They are simply looking after their own interests in this, and that requires screwing us. But that this campaign has actually been able to change people’s minds … supposedly intelligent people … that’s quite incredible. We can’t just walk away from this empty handed, we will look weak, but they’ve forced us to go it alone. The second this was turned into a public debate we were off to the races, but the other side has fought the PR war in public whilst we’ve acted in private.
People ought not to assume that means inaction.
Fans aren’t going to tolerate much more of this and that won’t just affect the clubs.
Our media had a chance to pick a side here and for the most part they’ve done so; easily led, they did Regan’s work for him and made this into a Celtic – Rangers – Sevco issue when Celtic’s own communications with the SFA make it blindly obvious that it’s not.
The SFA’s new PR people are to be congratulated; they are far better at what they do than their Sevco equivalent. Between them and a subservient media we’ve been made to look like the bad guys, the people who just won’t let Scottish football move on … it is shameful that they were able to do so.
If today goes as it looks like, Scottish football is beyond saving.
It might not be an Armageddon event which wipes the game away in a stroke, but the Death of a Thousand Cuts still gets you to the same place, only slower, and more horrible, like watching a slow motion car-crash, death coming at you a flicker on the camera at a time.
It doesn’t matter what happens next, whether it’s Celtic going it alone, the fans funding their own judicial review or a combination of both … the clubs will have failed to act in the wider interests of the game. It will be an act of selfishness and a profound disconnect with reality the likes of which none of us has ever seen. The foundation stones for the future of our game will have been laid, and the base on which it has been built will be one of scandal, cover-up and lies.
How anyone could delude themselves that this could be sustained I really don’t know.
And in some ways it’s the fate Scottish football deserves because so many people are willing to tolerate the intolerable for an easy life.