Only a truly, monumentally, diabolically screwed up football association could have done what the SPFL did yesterday.
These, don’t forget, are the people who think they are smarter and better and more in tune with the clubs and the fans than the SFA.
They just proved they are easily as amateurish, easily as stupid, easily as incompetent.
Of all the scenarios I believed might transpire from yesterday’s four club meeting, the one I thought was least likely was the playing of both games at the same ground on the same day. The reasons why it’s a bad idea hardly need pointing out.
Four sets of supporters – none with any love for each other – travelling to one city and one stadium? Madness.
Even with one being a mid-day kick-off and the other not due to start until the evening, this is a decision fraught with dangers. And even without that there are problems with it which have angered the clubs involved; Aberdeen fans need to travel to the game so early that they’ll be up before the roosters are, and on a Sunday when getting to Glasgow in the first place will be a slog. Hearts fans are furious because they face the evening kick-off.
Yet Doncaster would have us believe that this was the solution that suited everyone; within an hour of the meeting breaking up the two non-Glasgow clubs were making it abundantly clear that they accepted no such thing. I believe at least one of the Glasgow clubs is equally miffed.
Already Sevco fan sites, as well as those of our own supporters, are slamming the decision.
I cannot believe that anyone thinks this is a good call.
The obvious move here was to send one of the games to Murrayfield; it’s pretty clear that the SPFL is just as wedded to the egotistical fixation with Hampden as the SFA is. The idea that the league body might have to move a showpiece game to a non-football ground … not in this lifetime.
They would rather see football die than admit how clueless they are.
This has been screwed up right from the start. From the moment both Celtic and Sevco reached the Europa League groups – and, actually, from the moment Celtic dropped out of the Champions League – this should have been anticipated, and planned for.
How difficult is it to look at a fixture list?
How complicated?
What do these people do all day that they missed this so completely?
Why did they leave it until after the draw was made?
The lack of forward thinking here is mind-blowing. These people think they should be running all football in this country. They fancy themselves as being a better bet for the game than their counterparts in the smart blazers but even the SFA would have been ashamed to have presided over a mess like this one. Maxwell must be laughing like Hell.
These people have lost the plot.
Unable to come up with a semi-rational decision – or even just holding the line and showing some courage for once, playing one game on the Saturday and the other on the Sunday and owning the outcome their lack of planning brought about – they went for a reckless, perhaps even dangerous, fudge.
I am thoroughly ashamed of the so-called “leaders” we have in this sport.
Supporters have never been more disillusioned.
When the Hell are we going to get people in those offices who care about the game, and who know what they are doing?
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