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Davie Provan Has It Right For Once. The Sevco-SPFL Spat Is About Targeting Celtic’s “Power.”

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Regular readers will know that I dislike Davie Provan about as much as it’s possible to dislike any journalist out there. I don’t believe that man has a good thing to say about our club or Scottish football as a whole. The guy is irritating beyond belief and he seems to have a special – i.e. a bad – place in his heart for Peter Lawwell.

We can all agree that Lawwell is not perfect; this site has lashed him on many occasions.

But Provan finds a negative in nearly everything he can about the man.

Yet even he can see, clearly, who has come out of the Sevco-SPFL spat with the most credit, and the great enhancement of his influence. Lawwell has played a blinder and when a guy like Provan is happy to admit that then there’s surely no more room for debate on it.

Provan gives especial credit to Lawwell for putting Celtic publicly in favour of completing the campaign on the pitch. I am surprised he finds this interesting. Why would Lawwell, why would our club, not want that? The league was over and we had another treble to look forward to.

In strictly sports terms it was obviously going to be our preferred outcome.

Yet he’s right to say that it was a crucial blow in the PR war, as this site said at the time. The moment Celtic came out in favour of finishing the campaign the Null and Voiders were in disarray. They’ve never recovered their position, and their option has been dismissed out of hand by every credible person. Oh sure, The Record has promoted it and a handful of other lunatics have said it’s a feasible plan but it has never been entertained by the clubs.

From that moment, our club’s position was unimpeachable.

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In the 1951/52 season, SFA chairman George Graham tried to stop Celtic from flying the Irish tricolour flag over Celtic Park, leading to a bitter stand off between him and the club. Which Scottish club backed Graham over his stance?

When I asked yesterday if it was time for our club to come out and make a statement on this dire past month I was not surprised at the number of you who were dead set against it. Our silence has damned the Ibrox club; they and Hearts look like angry children, screaming about not getting enough cake.

Provan has also gotten right to the core of what Sevco’s recent squealing has actually been about; it really has nothing to do with SPFL votes. It is an attack on what the Ibrox club perceives to be the reach of our influence. This is why Douglas Park has taken a pathetic shot at Murdoch MacLennan in the press over the weekend, bringing up, again, alleged remarks once reported in a section of Private Eye. I mean, Good God … this really is bottom of the barrel stuff.

The issue here is that Lawwell is perceived as having too many allies on the SPFL board, which is why Doncaster and Rod McKenzie were the initial targets. MacLennan is on the list because of his alleged Celtic leanings. At the SFA there’s also suspicion at Ibrox about Mick Mulraney …

I mean just look at that name, right? The Unseen Hand isn’t even trying to hide.

This is the level of Ibrox paranoia and, dare I say it, their low self-esteem. Do you remember when those at Ibrox boasted that “no-one likes us; we don’t care”? They don’t half like to moan about it these days, eah? That’s what’s behind this last four weeks of craziness.

Incredibly, these people are so bad at politics, and so awful at public relations, that their ham-fisted, and frankly amateurish, efforts to firebomb the alleged Celtic nexus within the governing bodies has only weakened their already precarious position, with Robertson almost certain to be booted off the SPFL board when it meets on Tuesday.

Calls for the club itself to be censured are growing in volume too.

This has been a disaster for Sevco, and it has left them in a worse play than ever before, and if you check the press today you’ll see the Ibrox club and Hearts are still howling at the moon and actually making their situation progressively worse.

That takes skill, by the way. Of a sort.

Provan called it right for once today. This is about Lawwell, and it always was. The man himself has not only survived it, but he has strengthened his hold.

All without uttering one single word to the press.

That, too, takes skill.

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.

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