There are no prizes for guessing what the story of the week so far has been; the news, yesterday, that the SFA has given Ibrox the nod to sue the SPFL.
This might be one of the most shocking developments we’ve seen in this game in recent years. The SFA is supposed to follow UEFA’s regulations on this stuff; they should never be sanctioning a court-case between a club and a football body. It is absolutely astonishing.
This decision allows the Ibrox club to attempt to claim hundreds of thousands of pounds in “compensation” – that money will come directly from other clubs. And for what? A manufactured controversy which ends in them demanding legal fees and an apology? If the SPFL offers them either then heads should roll, but I have no expectation that any will.
I blame the clubs as much as anything else for this fiasco.
These so-called governors of our game serve at the pleasure of the chairmen and they’ve all sat back and allowed the Ibrox club to run roughshod over the regulations and those whose job it is to enforce them. If Ibrox has a case, then somebody should have lost their job over that; that demonstrates a complete lack of accountability. If Ibrox doesn’t have a case (and their case is a joke) then why were they permitted to behave in this fashion?
Right from the outset we said that they should be sanctioned and their automatic seats at the SPFL and the SFA stripped from them for threatening the commercial stability of the game. The governing bodies instead granted them an opt-out on the deal, a decision which recklessly threatens every future commercial contract the SPFL signs.
Still that wasn’t enough for them.
Now they want more. They will always want more, and this is like feeding a hungry wolf. One day, when you run out of scraps and the skinny little thing which you first felt sorry for has grown into a hulking monster three guess what it’s going to eat?
The funny part of this – amazing that we can find something to laugh about in the midst of what is genuinely a crisis moment for us – is that it comes as Ibrox’s mainstream media mouthpieces rush to tell us what a great job the current Ibrox board is doing in restructuring their club and repairing relations with the rest of the game.
It is incredible that anyone could have believed such obvious rot when the guy at the helm is the one who was talking, not that long ago, about the settling of scores. This is his first major act of public engagement with the rest of Scottish football and it is an attempt to humiliate the SPFL and take money from the pockets of every other club in the league … with the sanction of Ian Maxwell and the organisation which is supposed to look out for the game as a whole.
It doesn’t bode well for the future, does it? It proves that no matter what might have changed at the top of the house over there that they still have lunatics running the asylum. You only need to look at the other major piece of engagement in the last month to see what they are about; James Bisgrove, cutting off any prospect of a settlement in the dispute with Celtic by assuring his fan reps that they had no intention of offering us more tickets.
How are we supposed to take them seriously when they talk about wanting to fix this situation? They might be telling us one thing and telling their own fans something else entirely; how are we to believe them either way? This is the level at which they’ve chosen to operate, and so all talk that they want rapprochement with the rest of Scottish football should be taken not with a grain of salt but with all the stuff in Utah.
This is appeasement. Appeasement does not lead to everyone living in mutual respect.
This is not “peace in our time” as our clownish hacks were led to surmise.
Churchill knew it. Let me paraphrase him.
“We have sustained a defeat without a war… (but) do not suppose that this is the end. This is only the beginning of the reckoning. This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year … (we) had the choice between war and shame. (Ian Maxwell) has chosen shame – he’ll get war later.”
This Ibrox board is in no mood to make friends.
It appears to be as bloodthirsty, and crazy, as the last one.
James why don’t you get your best pal from across the water to use his journalist skills and take it up with the people in charge of the European game, and ask them to get involved with the new klub from ibrox bringing the game into disrepute.
As for our own club once again their bottle has gone,they should be challenging the SPFL and the SFA on this matter,because if money is coming out of the pot to compensate sevco and every other club is worse off for this by getting less money because of sevco’s childish behaviour,then clubs are making a rod for their own back.
As you say James they will keep coming back for more and our club and others are allowing,I would say that makes us worse than sevco for allowing it happen.
Scud, I assume you mean ‘the Ponce across the water’ as you usually refer to him.
Why should he do you any favours?
As far as our Club are concerned, you’re maybe jumping the gun here with the “once again their bottle has gone”
remark. This issue has only come to light in the past few days and who knows what communications have passed between our Club, other SPFL Clubs and the SPFL Board.
SEVCO’s target is Doncaster and if he goes they will veto any replacement until they get one that they can control.
This is the direct consequence of all the Clubs tolerating the Survival / Victim nonsense since 2012. The SFA are
to blame for that as they want to perpetuate that myth. You only need to look at their treatment of Celtic over The Lanarkshire Refereeing Association and their VAR Ludge. Celtic’s successes over the last 60 years sticks in their collective throat.
The SFA are a corrupt and amateur organisation that knows that all the other Clubs are too afraid of them to rock the boat.They are not fit for purpose regarding the Administration of the Professional Game in Scotland. They have a Bowling Club Committee mentality and are quite content to hold our game back if it protects their Scottish Protestant Masonic Hierarchy. The SFA will continue to placate SEVCO in that pursuit. They are cut from the same ‘cloth’ or should that read ‘apron’.
I will leave you with this,The 5 Way Agreement which our club and LIEWELL signed even though he still refuses to this day he did not sign it.
OUR CLUB ARE IN IT UP TO THEIR KNECKS SO DON’T DENY IT.
I can’t wait for freelance scoop Ewing Graham’s unbiased take on this one too James ? He was vociferous in his support for Craig Brown after you exposed his bigoted singing and manner to his girlfriend over the phone back in the day ! Ask him what he prefers : Fake news or an unnamed source ?
Have they EVER actually WON a single court case….? Even their ex Director DP raised an action against them to engineer a loss for Sevco so the claim against The SPFL could be manufactured as even bigger. Needless to say once he dropped Sevco so did his court case fall……Says it all really! People can SAY what they want but REALITY is totally different!
They must need the money to help pay for all those players they are going to buy have they bought anyone yet with real money .
For the life of myself, I can’t understand how hun scum think they actually have a claim in this matter?
We are talking about a scutter of an outfit in park’s of Hamilton against cinch a multi national outfit?
And what’s more disgusting is holding the whole of the SPFL to ransom over the issue?
Did the scum take the prize money on offer?
Course the shitehawks did, and still not good enough for their grubby paws.
Would like to think the SFA are giving the scum a green light to see that shower of shite they’re comeuppance in court, but hardly likely when there just as revolting as the scum themselves.
Hope there remains a legal loophole so the scum can be relegated out of the SPFL as an example to what such pettiness gets you and would totally deserve such a punishment
Well, the sevco PR hasn’t wasted any time.
Their SMSM poodles have been given their copy/paste instructions:
extracted from The ET, with a bit of subtle racism thrown in for good measure?
“…Herald Sport states that the SPFL would need to fork out in the region of £800,000 to part company with its CEO.
The report also states that the Englishman has a lengthy notice period too, which is said to run for two years.
The latest figures show that Doncaster, on a lucrative contract at the SPFL, raked in £392,000 in 2022, including bonuses.
That was up from the £388,000 he took home in the previous year and is a massive increase on the £172,000 salary he first earned when he joined the company 11 years ago…”
This must be a continuation of the Ibrox club
“making friends along the journey”? 🙁
Maybe if the other 41 clubs had found a collective spine back in 2012,
Scottish football might be in a much better place today?
Cinch are no braver than the clubs. If it had been Celtic, Cinch would have had more.to say rather than letting them roll all over them. Why didn’t they declare their agreement null and void and maybe then the member clubs would have crawled from under the rocks.
Hidden hand ? Two of them in a handshake.
James, not living in Scotland and not reading rags, can you explain what their beef is please before going in to details of their lunatic behaviour?