If Ibrox Really Does Bring Down The TV Deal The SPFL Deserves All It Gets.

The press is reporting that the new TV deal with Sky, which has been signed off on by 11 out of the 12 clubs in the league, is on the brink of collapsing because the Ibrox club has not responded to the ballot measure before the deadline.

They have leaked it to “friendly” outlets that they are unhappy with it and are willing to see it fail.

Not even their attempted spin on it has disguised what this is really about.

This is the latest phase of their war against the governing bodies, a war that I have written about several times on this site and warned was getting out of hand.

The SPFL leadership has shown nothing but weakness in this conflict.

The other clubs, ours included, have shown nothing but weakness.

Ibrox has already opted out of at least two commercial deals – that we know of – including one that could have seen the main sponsor of the league walk away and tear up their deal.

The governing body allowed it all.

Ibrox has suffered no repercussions for its blatant and unprecedented obstructionism.

The intent is obvious; to bring down the current leadership. The SPFL board is acting as if this situation is tenable, as if there is some way for the two parties to co-exist.

But their club has no intention of adopting peaceful co-existence and it does not care whether every other club in the league suffers momentous collateral damage in this battle. They are betting that the rest of the clubs don’t have the appetite to get aggressive with them over this, and that assumption has stood them good so far.

A deal this big being jeopardised though?

That surely has to finally focus minds on how to bring the Ibrox club to heel.

I doesn’t even matter if this deal goes through now.

The threat to torpedo it will be heard loud and clear and every commercial discussion the SPFL has now, with any organisation who might have been interested, will have this hanging over them.

It is massively destabilising.

It’s not just that this is a massive issue in itself, but it’s surely the final proof that the Ibrox board has no intention whatsoever of putting their issues with the governing body to bed but will seek to damage the SPFL executive at every opportunity, regardless of what that means for the greater good, or anyone else in the game.

This is not made any better when you have idiots like the chairman of Hibs expressing the view that the club over there are perfect ambassadors and are the club that best represents our game.

You wonder how many other executives at other clubs think the same way.

The governing body is going to hold an “emergency meeting” to discuss this issue, and they are looking for possible ways of circumventing Ibrox’s veto.

It would fit them better if they finally got real about this and starting punching back.

But I fear Scottish football’s gutless “leaders” will bottle out of that, and opt for damage limitation instead. The damage is mounting up though. How much harm will Ibrox have to inflict on the rest of the clubs before that fact finally sinks in?

This game deserves everything that it gets.