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.