Celtic And Inverness Are Right To Be Fuming Over This Cup Final Farce.

Last night, maybe an hour after we released a statement on the cup final kick-off time arrangements, Inverness released their own, and it was every bit as angry as the Celtic one, and, like ours, it was also damning about the conduct of the governing body.

They confirmed what our club already had; that the views and the wishes of the two teams were worth precisely nothing in the making of this decision.

You wonder how a crucial call like this could be made without the support of either club.

It is a joke. In fact, it’s worse than that; it’s a scandal.

If the clubs weren’t involved in the decision then who exactly was?

We’ve already found out that the scheduling of this weekend’s games has sparked fury from the police, as our title party will have started at precisely the moment Ibrox empties after their dead rubber against Aberdeen. Although we’re at Tynecastle there are expected to be celebrations all over the city, and them at home on the same day.

Are we now to assume that the TV companies – more even than the police – are the only folk who count?

Fans certainly don’t.

I knew looking at that kick-off time what Inverness’s primary cause for concern would be, and you can completely understand it.

Their fans would have been disenfranchised by a change either way, which is just one of the reasons the game should have been played at the traditional time. They, like Celtic, clearly understand the larger issue; this decision reduces our game in stature, making our cup final a lesser occasion than the one down south.

The almost universal presumption that we only have to show up to win already creates the worst possible conditions under which to contemplate moving the game, because the only way for our final to have parity with the FA Cup is to play them at the same time.

There was no other viable option which protected the reputational integrity of the match.

To play ours first would have allowed the critics of our game to call our final a warm-up act.

To play it following theirs is to market it as an afterthought.

It’s an appalling decision either way, and made far worse by the utter contempt for the clubs – theirs as well as ours – which is so very obviously on display, and it further advances the idea that we should be looking at serious, widespread reforms of the sport in this country, starting at the very top of the house.

It would be nice if those who dwell in that ivory tower recognised who keeps the lights there and everywhere else in Scottish football. Here’s a clue, in case they’re having difficulty coming up with it; it ain’t Sky or Viaplay.