Celtic’s momentous decision to opt out of the Premier Sports deal changes everything.

What allows us in the blogosphere to see what the mainstream media either miss or choose not to acknowledge? It comes down to perspective.

We aren’t part of the system we critique. We’re not restricted by the same commercial interests or relationships that can shape mainstream coverage. We’re able to see and highlight the inconsistencies, contradictions, and dangerous precedents the media might prefer to gloss over, either out of bias or a desire to avoid uncomfortable truths.

Celtic’s decision to opt out of the Premier Sports deal has sparked real concern, but it’s not yet been widely touched on in the press. A notable exception is Grant Russell, an executive at Motherwell and former STV sports reporter, who’s making waves over the issue.

Russell’s background with STV—particularly given their commercial partnership with the club from Ibrox—throws some doubt on how seriously we should take his opinions. STV’s involvement with that club naturally raises questions about impartiality.

Nevertheless, Russell recognises what’s at stake.

He’s publicly criticised Celtic’s decision to pull out of the TV deal, not only for what it means now, but I suspect for the long-term implications on future negotiations between the SPFL and Premier Sports. The question is, why would any broadcaster enter into serious talks with the league if a club the size of Celtic – the club they really want – can simply walk away?

And they won’t. Broadcasters will hesitate to return with revised deals, and why would they? Without Celtic, the offers they make for Scottish football content will plummet, which will inevitably harm every other club in the league.

No one can convince me that the rest of the media missed this point. The implications are so glaringly obvious that it’s hard to believe they weren’t noticed.

So why isn’t this story being told more broadly? The simple answer: Celtic didn’t set the precedent. This is the natural, inevitable consequence of something that started two years back, and it is the full effect of a situation that reared its head even earlier than that.

This is something we’ve seen coming for a while now.

This blog spent many long, fruitless months pointing out the long-term risks of what happened in the cinch debacle. While much of the mainstream media was celebrating the Ibrox club’s victory over the SPFL, we made it clear that Scottish football had been weakened by their actions—and by the SPFL’s willingness to roll over.

On 17 July 2022, I wrote:

“What the cinch debacle did was undermine the structure on which the whole of our game is built; collective bargaining and joint responsibility, the pooling of resources and everyone putting the sport first, above their own individual desires.

“There is little doubt that Celtic could make more from cutting its own commercial deals than the pittance we currently get as a part of the SPFL. We don’t cut loose for two reasons; not only do we respect those signed agreements but we support the philosophy which underpins them. The cake belongs to us all.

“We would have nothing without those other clubs to provide competition, and therefore we are all entitled to an equal share. It’s principled. It’s egalitarian.

“And because those who negotiate those deals are so seriously shit at it, we’ve been paid a fraction of what we’re worth. Every club has been sold short, one way or another, by the rank incompetents at the top of the house.

“But until last year, the wall held. Then Ibrox was allowed to opt out of the cinch deal, and that now threatens everything.

“If Celtic were ever to take the same attitude, and act accordingly, then all of the commercial deals which underpin Scottish football would collapse like the proverbial house of cards.”

And that’s where we are now.

Celtic, in putting its fans first, has shaken the foundations of the Scottish game. While I agree entirely that we should have taken this action, it leaves us wondering why we were allowed to opt out in the first place. What part of the SPFL constitution has changed to permit this?

So, did the cinch deal disrupt more than we thought?

Did it irreparably damage the regulatory framework that protects the league and its commercial contracts? And if it did, why hasn’t the SPFL fixed it? If the framework is in tatters, leaving the league and its deals vulnerable, why hasn’t it been rebuilt?

The cinch dispute inflicted momentous damage on the SPFL, and it was obvious from the start that there would be serious consequences.

Allowing one club to refuse participation in the sponsorship agreement and adjust the deal to accommodate them set a dangerous precedent. Once that was permitted, two things were inevitable. First, the cinch deal itself would be terminated early, which it was. Second, every other commercial contract signed by the SPFL would be subject to challenge and opt-outs.

This is a massive self-inflicted wound.

The difference is that while we’ve left money on the table here, the Ibrox club was actively chasing it. But that won’t matter to the other clubs, who will find themselves out of pocket when the deal ends and no new agreement is signed. Perhaps that’s part of Celtic’s motivation—challenging the league to get its house in order.

Our regulatory framework is a joke.

The gaps that allowed the Ibrox club to exploit the cinch deal and now allow Celtic to do the same are the same gaps that permit clubs to cut away allocations for our fans to almost nothing. There are so many aspects of football governance in Scotland where, in reality, there is no governance at all. Perhaps, in highlighting this issue, Celtic has done the game a service, bringing attention to a glaring flaw that can no longer be ignored.

It’s frankly astonishing that we’ve had to do this, as the issue was clear from the moment the Ibrox club mounted its little cinch offensive. If clubs can simply opt-out and walk away, then the whole system breaks down, and collective responsibility is gone.

What we end up with is anarchy.

This is what happens when you have leaders who refuse to lead and governors who refuse to govern. If there are holes in the rules big enough to drive a tank through, then someone eventually will.

And it affects other areas as well.

If your fit and proper person rules depend on charlatans and criminals admitting that they’re charlatans and criminals, they’ll simply lie to take control of clubs.

If you allow clubs to spend money they don’t have, eventually the money runs out, and no one is there to make up the shortfall. That’s how clubs like Inverness find themselves in financial trouble. That’s how clubs go to the wall.

Scottish football is ungovernable, not because it lacks governance, but because it has governance by people who don’t want to govern.

They don’t want to take responsibility or think about the greater good because they don’t want to make enemies or challenge powerful individuals and institutions.

The second the SPFL caved on the cinch deal, the moment they ended the arbitration process without seeing their lax regulations challenged in court, they should have convened an emergency meeting to tighten those rules. But they didn’t.

How do we know?

Because not long after that, the SPFL signed a ridiculous NFT deal, and the Ibrox club pulled out of it on the same grounds they used with cinch. That’s when I knew we were heading for trouble. Rather than making the rules more robust, they left them unchanged, and the Ibrox club exploited them again. It was only a matter of time before someone else would do the same.

I had a bad feeling it would be us.

Once there’s no collective responsibility, and clubs can walk away from deals and jeopardise them, why should Celtic play by those rules? Why should we put ourselves at risk by adhering to agreements that others can break?

Why should we remain tied to deals that might not hold up?

Once collective responsibility is shattered, asking Celtic to act out of goodwill—even at a cost to ourselves and our supporters—becomes absurd.

There may have been a time when our club would have taken that high road for the benefit of all, but we’re in a different environment now. An environment where clubs tell Celtic every other day that our fans are no longer welcome in their grounds, or they’ll only tolerate a few hundred tickets being allocated to us. So why should Celtic make sacrifices when others put themselves first?

The attitudes of other clubs are purely selfish and self-interested. That’s fine, they’re entitled to take that view. But if they can do it, then so can we. If their actions impact our supporters, why should we consider the effect on them when making decisions about those same fans?

It’s not too late for sanity or a restoration of goodwill, but it’s clear now that everything is up for grabs. There are no real ties that bind anymore, and every remaining contractual agreement is under threat along with everything else.

The way our club and fans have been treated has left a bad taste in the mouths of many at Celtic Park. When you add what the Ibrox club has gotten away with, despite the dangers, it’s no surprise that we’ve reached this point.

The only question now is, what’s next? And that should scare other clubs.

I imagine the executives at Motherwell aren’t the only ones seeing the writing on the wall.