Before we get to the real subject not just of the day but, I suspect, the week, there are two other matters to get out of the way first. This is is one of them.
So, the SPFL clubs are going to meet next week to discuss their widely heralded “internal report” which gave them a clean bill of health and has prompted calls from six different clubs for answers to what basically boil down to one single question; “who do you lot think you are kidding?”
One of those clubs is the Ibrox one. Indeed, they have a good claim to having launched this process by being the club to demand the report in the first place.
We know they were acting in their own interests. They must have expected a complete snow-job such as this. But the simple fact of the matter is that they are no longer the only club in pursuit of answers and maybe even reforms.
If the clubs come out in favour of reforms, if they read that report and react with contempt and disgust, if they believe it’s a sign that the governing bodies think they can treat them like mugs, and they decide no longer to tolerate that then we are going to have to decide whether we stand on the side of the reformers or with the status quo.
And to me, that seems like a fairly easy choice to make. Celtic should be leading any reform agenda. Celtic cannot, Celtic must not, allow the Ibrox club to emerge as the leaders of the effort and especially not if we are on the other side of it. Reforms are necessary. They are critical.
As I said in the Doncaster piece posted recently, we have been propping these guys up for far too long already and it’s high time we stopped.
The status quo is a joke, and if we don’t want Ibrox steering this in the direction of their own choosing, if we want the changes to be sensible and egalitarian and focussed on the good of the game first and foremost, we need to step up and lead.
God almighty, isn’t it time for this?
Aren’t these people sick and tired of watching the game here continue to deteriorate?
That doesn’t help us in the long term.
These second-rate leaders with their third-rate outlook are responsible for our dreadful commercial contracts, our complete failure to modernise, our ludicrous regulations with more holes than Swiss Cheese and their refusal to engage with the bulk of the suggestions in the McLeish Report which they commissioned and then ignored.
I’ve speculated that Celtic’s failure to reform the SFA is as much to do with our leaders protecting their own position as anything else. Are we to believe it?
If that’s not the obstacle standing in front of us then what exactly is?
The McLeish Report contains enough provisions to change the game for good.
The Scottish Football Supporters Association has its own list of suggestions.
Reform of football in England is well underway and there’s an independent report down there which has plenty more.
The roadblocks here are not for want of ideas. The ideas exist.
Why does the willingness to proceed down that road not exist? What are we waiting for? How bad does Scottish football have to get?
For the SPFL and the SFA both to tell anyone that they are well-run organisations is preposterous, and yet both of them have recently done exactly that.
The SPFL have commissioned their wee report and the SFA went in front of the Scottish Parliament and actually boasted about our robust financial regulations, which is laughable as we all know.
Ian Maxwell also completely rejected any need for our game to have an independent regulator … which God alone knows we do, and badly.
This might be the moment to start the ball rolling. If these clubs aren’t satisfied then they need to decide what they intend to do about it and we, shamefaced at not being in front of the pack, will have to then decide how we respond.
This board has behaved abysmally already.
The disgrace of failing on this would be profound, and would deserve to be fatal.
Sevco run Scottish Football and Scottish Society to be honest…
They have for 11 years and 204 days (as of today) just as their late forefathers called Rangers did for 140 years before them –
And they will forever more going forward…
Just watch as they trample over George Square and Glasgow and beyond when they win The League (And they will and many more going forward as well now)…
And they might throw us a bone in The Scottish Cup as anything can happen in a one off tie but this lot of charlatans would bottle it to Hearts, Aberdeen and Kilmarnock anyway –
Oh Rodgers, Daddy Lawwell, Lord Lucan Nicholson, Sonny Lawwell and all your spineless foreign junk that you wasted millions on – Yous are leaving us poor Hoops supporters one Fcukin stinking legacy !
??
“Celtic should be leading any reform agenda…”
As the biggest Scottish club, yes we should be leading any reforms,
…except our own club doesn’t really do reform, as we can painfully observe.
On the pitch, our team has regressed 5 years – to February 2019 – when
BR left. The ‘quality’ of the football is the same side-to-side, all about possession,
mind-numbing tactics, and devoid of real excitement and flair.
Off the pitch, the club has regressed 2 years in the Boardroom with PL back
‘pretending’ to be a Non-Exec Chairman. That will be about 20 years with the
overbearing PL dominating at the club: could he really have any fresh ideas?
Our transfer policy has regressed 2+ years, [after a brief ‘reform’ under Ange].
Our stadium could also benefit from some fresh investment?
And would it be PL himself – or his assistant MN – who would be pushing any
reforms with the SPFL…?
🙁
I don’t know that change simply for change’s sake is a route to follow but if it’s change along the lines of the McLeish Report recommendations and are indeed more sensible and egalitarian then fine support them.
Change for change’s sake or more accurately for the huns sake is not on and should be repelled at all cost. They should not be the beneficiaries.
Let’s not just forget which club have been scuppering the sponsorship deals and in the case of Cinch, the mutered Cinch deal to accommodate the huns wishes, ending earlier than they should.
I obviously blame the board for the mess we are in but with the squad we have, we should be winning games like yesterday given kilmarnock’s finances and facilities etc. I do think Brendan is unable to get the best out of the players we have which is unacceptable. If the board ever did open up the wallet, is Rodgers the man to give better players to, I really have my doubts
I remember Lawwell praising Maxwell before he got the job. That was the reason he did get it. There was another candidate (?), he had an Irish name, Mulraney maybe, so obviously fair-minded Peter wouldn`t want to be seen favouring him.
It was the wrong McLeish who made the report. If it had been the uneducated one it would have been adopted along with a knighthood for services rendered to Scottish Football.