Rumours stalk cyberspace there have been whispers amongst the clubs about the SPL adopting a new financial model for the coming years, which goes under the soft-sounding name of “revenue redistribution.”
This is exactly what it sounds like.
This is them taking money from us and giving it to other clubs to “improve” the level of competition. This is handicapping. This is financial doping in reverse.
In short, it’s a scam, with us as the marks.
This is robbery. They will try to paint it as some kind of altruism, but it’s robbery just the same.
If they attempt it I hope they have the good graces to admit what it is. I hope they come wearing masks and carrying guns, for their act of attempted theft. It will be an attempt to steal what we have earned. No-one should dare call it otherwise.
And it will be met with the kind of resistance you only get in those “stand your ground” states in America, where heavily armed citizens really can gun you down for stepping into their gardens. If these people come with such intent, Celtic will have the lawyers waiting and Scottish football might as well hit the Stop button until the legal mess is sorted out.
And we’ll win. There’s just no doubt about it.
There are leagues which already try to rig sporting outcomes, most notably in the United States.
They do it with the football equivalent of the draft system; the teams that finish lowest in the rankings get the pick of the best up and coming youth players to fill out their team. This works in other US sports, but I suspect it’ll be phased out in football entirely.
It would never be allowed in Europe. The big clubs would resist it for all they worth and they would be entirely right to. Here football is the ultimate meritocracy, and although money has distorted it the basics are the same as they always were; if one club utilises its resources wisely, markets itself properly and grows bigger than the rest … tough luck for the rest.
Remember when Rangers were spending tons of money? Remember when they boasted of having “one team for Scotland and another for Europe”? I don’t know, I was in my 20’s at the time so perhaps I was just drunk for years on end, but I don’t recall any of these suggestions being made about them. Perhaps that was because everyone realised that taking money from them would do no good; most of it wasn’t theirs in the first place.
But more probably, nobody cared enough. Nobody was talking about “the good of Scottish football” back then. Rangers were the big cheeses, and that was alright by everyone else. Except Celtic. We were wanted as a cash-cow, but no-one cared if we ever won another title. There was no talk about Rangers achievements meaning nothing because we had been weak.
I remember Fergus making that very point when he took over and said “Everyone says the game here needs a strong Celtic, but not too strong …” He knew which way the wind was blowing alright, and what was blowing in it.
All of a sudden the shoe is on the other foot. Celtic is strong, just as Fergus intended, just as he foresaw, and the foundation stones he put in place are those on which our modern, forward thinking club is built. We’re in the best place we have been for years, at the end of a journey of 20 years. That’s how long since we stopped the ten, and in all that time we’ve worked diligently to become powerful and rich and strong.
Nobody is taking that away from us without a fight. They either get better at what they do or pray for a change in the weather that suddenly washes Scottish football in easy cash like the English have or for Celtic to get a passage somewhere more interesting.
Other than that, they’re just going to have to suck it up, because if they choose this as an alternative, if they try to take what we have worked so hard for … oh man, there will be an outcry from our fans which will bring the game to a standstill.
Which is to say nothing for what our club and our shareholders will do.