Do we have functioning football governance in Scotland?
The last few days would suggest not.
Since Friday, there has been one dominant story, the story about how the SPFL could not get enough votes to get the end of the season declared in the event we can’t finish the fixtures.
85% of Scotland’s senior clubs voted in favour of this.
The small number of holdouts all have a vested interest in some other form of resolution. Yet these clubs, acting out of pure selfishness, have the rest of the game at sixes and sevens. Two are throwing around allegations like confetti but have yet to produce one iota of actual proof for their claims.
All sorts of malfeasance are being alleged, on both sides of this.
Most of it will be conspiracy theory moon-howling. I said yesterday in a piece that if there’s evidence that Doncaster or someone on the SPFL board has been messing about there that we want to see it and we want the people responsible for it booted out of the game forever.
|
|
Ally McCoist jumped into it early; he’s a connoisseur of a great conspiracy theory he is.
He wants forensic computer analysts to do checking. On what? He’s not quite sure. Perhaps they should look into the Sevco bus that was torched and which he accused Celtic fans of having done. Or perhaps he should demand more names of SFA committees he doesn’t like.
Yet it is people like him who are driving this agenda.
Dundee are holding the entire game to ransom, demanding something that will simply not be delivered. League reconstruction? Even in the best of all scenarios nobody is interested in it, nobody would vote for it, and they certainly won’t right now. If Dundee and other clubs want to block the handing out of the money, then so be it; the league’s position is clear and the ought to be sticking to their guns. Instead they are holding an emergency meeting.
It sounds an awful lot like they are going to scrap the vote … or maybe that’s just wishful thinking in the media. If we end up back at square one, waiting on one club, the whole game will suffer. But I don’t blame Dundee as much as I blame the Ibrox-Tynecastle axis.
These are two boards of directors who have screwed up monumentally.
Both have presided over failure.
They see this as an opportunity to reverse their own disasters, by latching on to the global one in which we are all caught up. It is shameful.
What is even more shameful is the way this small handful of clubs is now driving the agenda.
They cannot be allowed to bully their way to the solution they want.
As Scottish football goes through the current crisis it is important to keep up with developments and the key issues. We are determined to do so, and to keep you informed as well. Please subscribe to the blog.