D is for Doncaster
Neil Doncaster is perhaps more to blame than anyone else in the game for what was allowed to happen in 2012.
He was one of the earliest people to be informed of what was going on at Ibrox, when Craig Whyte met with him shortly after Rangers was knocked out of the Europa League.
There is no question that he was well aware of their predicament in November of 2011, because that month he told the SPL board that they would have to shelve the proposals for FansTV, which was the brainchild of Hibs’ Rod Petrie.
Doncaster said there had been a “change in circumstances” affecting one of the clubs.
It was around that time that he urged the signing of a new TV deal with Sky, one that included the notorious “four Old Firm games” clause; or so he later stated.
In fact, we have good reason to believe that the clause did not reference a set number of games but was, in fact, security against circumstances where “either Celtic or Rangers was not in the league.”
A memo to that effect has been circulating in certain circles online for many years and is definitive evidence that the SPL hierarchy signed that deal, with that clause inserted, to blackmail clubs who might not be keen on the idea of an Ibrox NewCo in the top flight.
Doncaster’s scam was defeated by the clubs on a straight vote with only Kilmarnock demurring.
His Scottish football career ought to have ended that day, but he remains at the heart of the game.
Celtic has enabled Doncaster’s survival for reasons known only to those inside Celtic Park.
One day that will have to be explained.
One of the great ironies is that we were forced to defend this joker when Sevco and Hearts came after him with their false claims at the end of last season. This blog found itself in the perverse position of supporting a man who we would otherwise have wanted to see sitting outside Hampden with his boxes waiting on a taxi coming.
The Celtic bloggers believe Doncaster to be a scandalised character who ought not to be in office … but none of us was willing to participate in a witch hunt based on bogus charges, and especially not one that was led from Ibrox, and based around paranoid claims that Celtic has too much influence.
Sevco made a lot of noise, but when their dodgy dossier was produced it turned out not to have a smoking gun … it was, in fact, an empty bag of wind.