As concerns build as to whether or not this season will even continue to an end, desperate hacks and Sevco sympathisers are clawing their way through the woodwork to present the reasons why Celtic can’t automatically be given the title which we’ve as good as won already if this season is brought to a temporary close.
Let’s forget for a minute that nobody at Celtic wants this outcome.
Nobody. Not fans, not players, not the manager, not the board, not the staff, not the ball boys, not the sponsors, nobody.
We cannot say that about every club, now, can we?
A lot of people across the game here are praying for a shut-down which reprieves them after their own dire performances.
For Celtic – who not only want to wrap up the title but want to wrap up the quadruple treble as well – it is the least palatable outcome. It is not remotely desirable.
Ask these people who are opposed to making us champions in that horrible scenario what the realistic – and fair – alternative to this is. Ask them and see what they come up with.
Not surprisingly, it’s all nonsense.
There are a number of scenarios being “considered.”
As I have pointed out, all of them are a complete non-starter, yet they are being pushed in one way or another.
Each is dire in its own way … where they aren’t flat-out impossible they all drive a wrecking ball through that alleged “sporting integrity” we hear so much about.
I am going to go over these options now, in detail, including the one that sees the league stopped “as is” and the points and the prizes and everything else awarded on that basis.
These arguments are going to get ridiculous in the next few days and weeks, as our enemies bend logic and fact every which way they can to get the conclusion they want.
If we’re going to combat that successfully, we need to know what the other side is proposing … and demonstrate exactly why it is not only unfeasible but grossly unfair as well.
Suggestion One: End The Season “As Is” With It All Decided On Rankings.
This is the most likely of all the scenarios, the least controversial and the fairest too.
It minimises disruption to European football in the next campaign, frees up the calendar to possibly complete the Scottish Cup if we get lucky and leaves no lingering uncertainties.
It is also the one the media and the Sevconuts would be most venomously opposed to.
The idea has merit because it is fair.
With only one match outstanding – Sevco versus St Johnstone – you could get that one out of the way, behind closed doors, end it “as is” with every side having played an equal number of matches and meet all the basic tenants of fairness and sporting integrity.
Enough of the campaign has been played to determine who has succeeded on merit and who has failed.
Above and beyond any of that, this solution is “clean.” It does not involve some of the more nonsensical garbage being talked elsewhere … stuff like Tom English was shovelling up yesterday for those who are interested in what he has to say.
This is the option that causes minimal disruption.
It eliminates the need to put artificial dates on when this season can “resume”.
It does create a scenario where this mess spills into next season.
It does not, as some of the more ridiculous scenarios postulate, involve restructuring Scottish football in some bizarre or unworkable way which will never garner support amongst the clubs.
In this scenario, the SPLF and the SFA call time on the current campaign.
Those who claim that Celtic could still be caught over the remaining eight games will have literally nowhere to go; there will no longer be eight games.
The SPFL, using the powers available to it, will have written those games out of existence.
And no, it does not “set a bad precedent.”
It sets a very good one indeed.
These are exceptional circumstances.
If we ever find ourselves in such a position again we will have a clear and precise guideline for what would happen. There would be no need for the whole of the game to self-flagellate and worry about the various scenarios … there would be a protocol, written in stone, for what would happen next.
That is a vastly better outcome than we could have hoped for at the start of this.
Our game will have maintained its integrity and established a framework for any future repeats. Furthermore, the places will have been decided on merit, not some arbitrary nonsense, and will apply down through all the divisions, and so there will be consistency and logic to it.
And on a final point – and this an important one – UEFA’s competitions for next season go on as planned, and without impediment. That’s why this is the only transparent and fair option which is likely to get their seal of approval across the continent.
Suggestion Two: Let This Drag On For Months, Possibly Into Next Season …
For maximum disruption – and to see maximum desperation all round – these are the proposals you want to be taking a look at.
Because nearly every single one of them is absolutely barmy.
The rest are dependent on us getting a very lucky break with this virus, which I don’t think for one second that we are going to get.
They range from finishing this season in May, June, July or even August, obliterating pre-season, risking exhaustion to players and throwing the European football calendar into another year of mayhem, to plans which even involve league reconstruction which presumably would therefore be permanent and for which no club can be relied on to support.
Let’s take the first idea, playing these games months down the line. It is ridiculous. It asks us to put the rest of the season “on hold”, to be played at a time we do not yet know, with knock on effects to the next campaign which we simply cannot predict.
This thing is going to last for months. We have no idea when the peak will be. We could be scheduling these games only to have to come back to the same debate again. It would be nonsense to pretend we can float through months without conclusions.
On top of that, this crisis comes in the midst of a season ticket campaign.
But what will next season look like? Finances are going to take a hit, and that’s a fact. But how does putting off the end of the campaign – when salaries and what not have to be paid regardless – make more sense than simply ending it now? The figures do not change either way.
Even if there was an answer to that, there’s a huge issue which nobody, thus far, appears to be in the slightest mood to acknowledge.
Many of our clubs have loan deals which terminate at the start of June and because of that nobody can even pretend that sporting integrity is being followed in the event these proposals are enacted. Forster and Elyounoussi will be gone. The big keeper has been one of our most consistent players. Bauer will be unable to provide cover.
And what of clubs who’s players are out of contract?
Because of the rules on registrations, no side would be able to play their new signings … and nor should they. How much damage would that do to clubs, through no fault of their own? You’re potentially weakening every team in the league, but obviously some more than others.
It is more than possible – in fact it is certain – that clubs will have to make savage cuts well before these games are played. A lot of that will be from wages. All the teams involved will be drastically weaker than they would have been otherwise … the richer clubs will be fine.
So how does that account for sporting integrity?
Chick Young thinks players should simply accept their responsibilities to their current clubs and stay on.
But even if they were willing to, there are no regulations in place which would allow for that, and the PFA’s Fraser Wishart immediately made it clear that this isn’t on. Wishart was very smooth and noncommittal, but he brought up several objections which hint at the stance of the player’s union as a whole.
The idea is completely unfeasible.
On top of that, the knock-on effects for the next campaign could be equally severe.
Some folk are floating barmy reconstruction ideas; The Record has one idea which would extend the league and have our team playing 46 league games in the next campaign … on top of eight league games which still remain from this one. And right into the Euros.
It’s as if nobody has sat down and actually thought about any of this.
Most vitally, UEFA will never allow any of this.
They need to know who has qualified for their competitions by mid-June at the very latest.
They will not allow this to drag on until July or August until we get our act together here.
Those issues have to be resolved on a timetable which is almost impossible to change on the fly.
I would be amazed if they accepted any scenario where national leagues can simply hang, in limbo, when there is a vastly less complicated solution, and one that is based on a meritorious system of games already played.
One last thing; even if UEFA allowed it, even if they gave us the same European places as we have now and there was a way to allocate them that wouldn’t be farcical, we might as well not bother competing as we’ll be nowhere near fit enough to contest them, based on having to squeeze eight extra league games and two cup games in around them.
Write off Group Stage football for next season.
Which, let’s face it, Celtic is never going to allow.
Solution Three: Decide The Issues By Some Bizarre Lottery System
This is a beauty. I am gob-smacked that it is even being considered.
To decide this by “averages” or by some pools panel type board.
Either option would essentially get a group of grey men together to invent football results.
Nothing would be more certain to spark legal action than this. When I heard Lennon agreeing that “the average points total” should be a consideration yesterday I was frankly astonished. I understood that he meant well, but it’s daft.
He is correct that our league lead makes us champions, but he ought not to have invoked the spectre of deciding games yet to be played via anything other than football matches.
This is not really an option and nobody is seriously contemplating it.
Of all the ideas being touted it is the least credible and the one that the governing bodies would not even consider.
It would not be in the least bit equitable or reasonable … or even lawful.
Solution Four: A System Of Play-Offs To Decide All The Major Issues In The Game.
This is another crazy idea and no-one is going to convince me that a team who is miles clear in the league as we are should have to contend in a one-off fixture or some home and away tie with Sevco to decide the title. Absolutely not.
The idea is frankly ridiculous.
There are about a half dozen clubs who could compete in Europe this season.
And there are a handful of points between them.
How are you going to schedule play-offs there?
Do they all play each other?
Do you come up with bizarre scheme for how one plays another one and pretend that these one-off games is a suitable solution?
And if you make it a “group stage” type thing that’s six to eight games … you might as well just find a way to play all the matches that are left. Ridiculous.
Suggestion Five: To Find A Way To Play The Remaining Games Up Until The SPFL Split.
There is one solution that hasn’t been mooted yet, and it would be even fairer than ending the season as is, with things as they stand, and it’s easier than trying to fit eight more games into the calendar somewhere; play the three games that remain up to the SPL split and call it quits at that point.
Abolish the five games that follow.
This will give clubs a chance to settle the outstanding issues.
A limited chance.
But I’ve always believed the split was a nonsense anyway, and ridiculously unfair especially in the way it doesn’t give a full allocation of home and away ties.
I wrote about this earlier in the campaign; Celtic will face to away ties at grounds we’ve already visited twice, whereas Sevco will play two home games against teams they’ve already played twice at home.
Sporting integrity? Don’t me laugh.
If there’s a way to end the season with every club on 33 games – three games against each team – it will be balanced and fair.
And in that scenario, as I pointed out, Celtic will have had the balance of away games go against us whilst Sevco will have had the balance fall in its favour.
Of course that wouldn’t satisfy their fans at all … because in that scenario we are already league champions, whatever the results turn out.
Suggestion Six: End It Now, Void The Lot, Operation Stop The Nine Gets A Temporary Win
The daftest solution of the lot, and the one that we have to resist with all that we’re worth.
It is the unacceptable solution, one that says we should write off the whole of the league campaign and that we should allow a despicable fudge.
The important thing here is that people from the governing bodies have said that it’s an unthinkable scenario.
Unthinkable. So I am confident it won’t happen.
I have heard various “fair” suggestions for how it could be justified, and some that attempt to address the issues raised by UEFA requirements.
Like the idea that we should abandon the season but still allocate European places based on the results in it.
So no league winners, no promotions or relegations … but we’ll let teams qualify for Europe based on the current standings? Laughable.
It shows what the real agenda is.
Let me be blunt; there is nothing fair, there is nothing balanced, there is nothing honest about simply writing off 30 matches and pretending they never happened.
It is like a bad joke to try and defend this on sporting integrity grounds and the specious argument that we could still be caught is even more pathetic; their team is on its knees, their dressing room is divided and their manager is out of his depth and floundering.
We are not going to be caught and they know it, we know it and everyone involved in Scottish football no matter how peripherally knows it too.
This title has been won.