PARTICK THISTLE and Inverness Caley Thistle voted against the SPFL proposal yesterday and alongside Hearts, Falkirk and Stranraer and you can see why. All these clubs are unnecessarily losing out and are paying the penalty for the inflexibility and general incompetence of Neil Doncaster and the team around him at the SPFL.
If you’ve met Doncaster you’ll know that he is a guy with a very high opinion of himself. Yesterday, yet again, he has demonstrated that that faith is clearly unfounded to say the least.
The basic principle in sorting out the impasse created by the once in a lifetime situation that the Scottish game faces through the coronavirus crisis should have been that no club should suffer significant damage as a result of any plan to kick-start the game. Getting the professional football going again is surely everyone’s priority, when it is safe to do so.
This is NOT 2012, when the problems weren’t really to do with Scottish football but rather just one club, Rangers FC who were heading from administration to liquidation with huge side issues of tax disputes with HMRC going through the courts and the uncomfortable realisation for the Scottish FA that they had given that club a licence to play in European football that season that they were clearly not entitled to.
We got a huge cover-up, one that Celtic shareholders are still pursuing doggedly, the sham of the Lord Nimmo Smith enquiry – did you Read David Potter’s article the other evening on The Celtic Star regarding Rangers claiming the title that they shared with Dumbarton? David pointed out that using Asterix Johnston logic, a shared title is half each. However he also pointed out that Celtic were out of the running because they had fielded a goalkeeper in one game against Hearts who wasn’t properly registered. This was in the first ever season of the Scottish League and the mistake (an honest one) was punished by the Scottish FA deducting FOUR points from Celtic. Compare and contrast with Lord Nimmo Smith.
Dumbarton’s Half Title Shock, Chuck hits the Calvados, Macca’s record breaking half | The Celtic Star https://t.co/WzRVwQS3kJ
— The Celtic Star Editor (@CelticStarMag) April 8, 2020
And the rule book was completely re-written for that club via the 5 Way Agreement, new rules that govern our game but strangely Celtic’s CEO Peter Lawwell, has claimed at the PLC’s AGM last November, that he has never read.
Then that title that Rangers won that should only be a half title, and all the other honours that the club won up to 2011, were unbelievably allowed to be transferred over the new club. Doncaster travelled over to Celtic Park one evening to explain to a small group of hand-picked Celtic Supporters (hand-picked by Peter Lawwell) just how all that happened. Apparently the two SFL chaps Chief executive David Longmuir, president Jim Ballantyne (From Airdrie Utd – note the United bit at the end), decided
that the SFL would recognise the honours of the old Rangers (in liquidation) as now belonging to the new club.
Airdrie had gone out of business completely, ironically enough because Rangers owner David Murray had pursued them for a debt due to Rangers, thus the Airdrie Utd. They were an entirely different club, actually Clydebank who had also bit the dust.
But Ballantyne, who is a self confessed Ibrox fan and his blue-nosed pal Longmuir – who made a huge bonus from having the Rangers in the SFL, decided that as the Rangers was one of the THEIR clubs, the SPL could determine that the honours won by Rangers FC could be transferred over to Charles Green’s new club.
Then of course as a result of this Airdrie Utd were able to drop the United bit and claim to be Airdrie as a direct result of the Airdrie Utd bosses decision.
You might want to read up on all the SFL minutes on this. Well good luck with that. Doncaster told the small band of Celtic Supporters, carefully chosen by Peter Lawwell, that the SFL weren’t great at keeping records and as the SFL had now been disbanded as the SPFL structure we have today replaced it, that was the end of the matter.
Cheating, bleating and the first instance of the media falling to their ‘charms’…https://t.co/bOMtMW3XTN @StephenODauthor @Pmacgiollabhain
— The Celtic Star Editor (@CelticStarMag) April 9, 2020
So those Celtic Supporters heard from Neil Doncaster at Celtic Park in a meeting organised by Peter Lawwell that two Rangers supporters, administrators at the SFL, had while Charles Green’s 2012 club began its journey in the lower divisions, decided to award his new club all the honours that the previous club claimed to have won (see Dumbarton story above) and as a direct result one of those Rangers supporters, who was running Airdrie Utd, and regarded at that time by everyone as an entirely different club to Airdrie (which had gone into liquidation as a result of David Murray’s court action) was able to change the Airdrie Utd club into the defunct and liquidated Airdrie and claim all of its history.
So when the SPL and SFL merged to form the SPFL Neil Doncaster inherited the SFL club into his remit and of course that included the Rangers, who by this time had the old clubs honours rubber stamped by two of their supporters who ran the SPL but didn’t keep any records. That is Scottish football for you.
Anyway back to the 2020 shambles. Yesterday started with the SPFL and the Rangers getting into an argument about the contact that had taken place the day before between the Ibrox club and the SPFL and while Celtic Supporters natural instinct is to on this occasion side with the SPFL for standing up to the Rangers, it isn’t as clear cut as all that. It’s probably worth waiting for all that to come out in the wash.
Then we had the farce of the vote and the state of that desperate press release that the highly paid (by the clubs) and rated (by himself) Chief Executive issued last night. Dundee missed the deadline but are now being given time to think about it all and will be allowed to cast their vote when it suits them. The Dens Park club have let it be known via the papers that this will be early next week as they want the weekend ‘to think about it’.
As mentioned above I have every sympathy for the two Thistles and also for Hearts, plus also Stranraer. Inverness, like Falkirk are being denied a play-off and one Premiership club is being spared the high risk ordeal of having to play the Championship runners-up.
If League restructuring is not an option – and we have written about this repeatedly on The Celtic Star – two teams up Brora Rangers and Kelty Hearts from the Highland and Lowland leagues into the second division, no relegation next season and three go down with the an additional two teams dropping out the league two.
Three teams would be relegated from the Premiership too next season from a 14 team league and the season after next we are back to the situation we were in at the beginning of this season.
Is that really that difficult to pull together Mr Doncaster? Obviously it is.
Partick Thistle are being relegated but have a game in hand against Inverness (who they have a good record against this season). That game in hand was caused by the Challenge Cup semi-final between Inverness and the Rangers Colts – the game where the Inverness player got sent off for diving when he clearly hadn’t and it took Gary Lineker to get involved before the SFA changed their minds and said he could play in the final).
Anyway Partick Thistle were due to play Inverness that day but the game was postponed due to the SPFL scheduling the Challenge Cup match. Had Thistle played that day they would also possibly have got something from the game and could have avoided relegation. The Jags also had the easier run-in to the season as they were the only side who had fulfilled all their league fixtures against runaway leaders Dundee Utd.
So where do we go from here? Assuming Dundee vote for the SPFL motion there are bound to be legal challenges.
If they vote against we are back to square one.
If restructuring is not an option, then in the interests of fairness, don’t scrap the play-offs. Instead give the bottom side in each league the chance to play-off against the second team in the league below. So Hearts would play Inverness Caley Thistle, Partick Thistle would play Falkirk and Stranraer would play Edinburgh City.
That surely solves the problem for you Mr Doncaster. You are welcome.
And the only other club that will be left moaning will be the Rangers. But everyone, including them, know that their season was done and dusted anyway. All the clubs moaning today have a genuine grievance, except the Ibrox club who are just bad losers.
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