The Sun is reporting this morning that St Mirren have been refused a UEFA license on the grounds that they do not satisfy the criteria for financial fair play.
If that story is true, then it hardly needs to be said that a question automatically arises here; if they don’t meet the criteria how in God’s name does the club from Ibrox, which is floating on a sea of equity confetti?
St Mirren’s licensing application was more or less automatic because although they cannot reach a European place in the league, they can still win the Scottish Cup.
The report today claims that they have been refused it by the SFA.
It is interesting that the SFA has finally realised they have the power to do something like this.
Although domestic FFP does not exist, they have to scrutinise the accounts of all the clubs who play in European competitions in order to be sure they tick the boxes at UEFA.
How in God’s name does the Ibrox club tick those boxes, especially when future European football income cannot be included as part of the calculations?
Ibrox has been cracking down on the few journalists who dare to mention this inconvenient fact; I will be writing more about Andy Walker today after the shocking news that Celtic has banned him as well.
Our behaviour as a club is outrageous at the moment, and there’s no justification whatsoever for banning Walker whilst others are allowed to toxify our press box.
Walker’s comments on the “precarious position” of the Ibrox club’s finances were right on the nose, and other journalists should have joined him in that.
Those remarks now require greater scrutiny than ever, and if St Mirren’s directors are not demanding to know how a club which posted £17 million in losses for last season and has already “raised” over £30 million from directors and shareholders just to get through this campaign does qualify when they do not then those people shouldn’t be at their club.
Don’t even get me started on Celtic.
The club which has suffered most from allowing Ibrox to run roughshod over those regulations is ours.
Their place on the Champions Path to the Group Stages has been achieved by the worst financial doping the game has seen since Murray and our club hasn’t done a damned thing about it and they’re not going to start now.
We are weak. Scottish football governance is run for the benefit of one club and it isn’t ours, and although we suffer for it our board of directors appear as if they couldn’t care less.