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Whatever “Reforms” Are Planned For The SFA, Doncaster Should Have No Part In Them.

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So Neil Doncaster has joined the SFA board.

Some see it as the first sign that the clubs are moving against the governing body.

All well and good, as they should have an age ago. But to do what? To set up what? To move forward with what? What’s the plan here, and why does anybody think that a charlatan like Neil Doncaster should have any role in it?

There are two schools of thought when it comes to Doncaster; I subscribe to the first of them. That he has been a calamitous and scandalous chief executive of the SPL and that it is a miracle owing only to the good graces of Celtic and others than he has lasted as long in the job as he has. I have heard the term “useful idiot” mentioned when I’ve inquired as to why Celtic continues to support this guy remaining in post – and they do.

But I cannot see what possible function he serves.

Another school of thought has Doncaster as a secret reformer, a guy whose best efforts have been stymied by the subservient role the SPL plays to the SFA. In their version, Doncaster has been unfairly maligned and is misunderstood. He would have changed things if only he had been allowed. He would have moved the game forward if only others at Hampden didn’t have the back of his jacket and were holding him, and the game, back.

Now, with Regan gone and the SFA weak, these people think we’ll see the sword wielding radical come to the fore, and that real change will suddenly materialise. Some have even suggested that it’s a game-changing move in the struggle for power, that and Ian Maxwell being pushed as the new CEO of the SFA, a move I’d broadly agree with.

But to do anything serious, the governing bodies are going to need to carry the fans with them and Neil Doncaster is absolutely toxic. No so called reform with him at the helm is going to be trusted. He is probably more hated, by fans across all the clubs, than Regan was. I’ve said for a long time that the game will not move on until he’s gone; I believed then, and now, that he’s actually a bigger impediment to change than Regan himself was.

Let’s be clear; Doncaster was up to his neck in all of this. He was the first person in the governing structure to know what Craig Whyte was up to. He brokered the corrupt television deal and got the “four Old Firm games” clause inserted in it so that he could blackmail the clubs. He passed over debt dumping amongst football teams as “normal.” He was one of the architects of the Five Way Agreement and the Lord Nimmo Smith fiasco.

He is not part of the solution. Neil Doncaster is part of the problem.

He was elected unopposed. Ponder that for a moment.

Why would someone going on there to shake things up be elected unopposed?

The people running this game are so out of touch it makes you want to scream, doesn’t it?

If the brave new dawn of Scottish football starts with that man’s elevation then it’s not brave, it’s not new and it’s not a dawn either.

It’s another step into the dark.

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