The SPFL is due to meet today for what many of us hope will be Celtic’s title coronation.
This looks unlikely though.
The feeling now is that a decision which had been as good as taken last week has been put on pause yet again whilst UEFA waits and waits.
The current thinking is that the lower leagues might be declared today with the top flight forced to wait until we confirm what we already know; that no games will take place this month or next month or the month after that. That the season is over.
UEFA has put the SPFL in this position, but don’t feel sympathy for our governing bodies.
They took the decision weeks ago and simply haven’t had the guts to implement it. They know – as all sane people do – that there will be no football even as we go into the summer and that we might not see it well into the year, and that’s if the governments get this thing under control.
There is prize money to be paid. UEFA seems to want to wait for the European places to be awarded; God knows what they intend to do with their own schedule. Chaos is too mild a word for what the global game is facing.
The best thing to do, by miles, would be to call the leagues and start thinking about the next campaign and how it might be organised.
We seem a long way from that kind of action, unfortunately.
The SPFL has one move available to it; to cast off the doubt and tell the fans and the teams and UEFA itself that they intend to name provisional champions … which is what this site and others have been calling on them to do. Announce that if we can’t restart the season that this will be the outcome, and pay clubs their prize money on the basis of it, with the caveat that in the event the leagues do manage to restart that sides will have to pay it back from next year’s earnings.
At a stroke the uncertainty is gone. If football resumes, then all well and good.
We’ll all be delighted to finish this campaign and get back to our ordinary lives once again.
I can’t think of anything that would make me happier.
But if it does not pan out that way, at least we will all have certitude. Clubs can begin making their plans right now. UEFA will be satisfied that the SPFL waited to see if the games could be completed before making it official and life will go on … as normal?
Perhaps not.
But it way past time for the adults to take over this process and put everyone on notice of what’s going to happen in the event we can’t get this thing done.
The expectation is that the season will not be completed. So let’s act like it.
Name Celtic “provisional champions” today, confirm all the positions, write the cheques … and then wait and see what happens, and pray it never has to be made official this way.
At long last, it would restore common sense to this process.
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