GOING NUCLEAR
If every club in the SPFL is acting out of self interest, then why shouldn’t Hearts and Partick do the same?
WHEN Marcus Rashford is finished running rings around hopeless Tory defenders, perhaps the Man United social justice hero could help sort out Scottish football.
Wee Daniel – as one government halfwit called him on telly yesterday – managed to get Westminster to do a humiliating U-turn to get them to stump up for poor kids to get free lunches during the summer holidays.
Good on him. Talk about using your powers for good. Folk down south should bring back the clapping on the doorstep for one night only.
We could do with him up here. But we’ve got beyond asking the SPFL to make a U-turn. They’ve taken so many wrong turns during this coronavirus crisis they’ve gone past the Inca City of Gold and have now stopped at Atlantis to look for directions.
It’s a time machine we need. It would be the most Scottish football thing ever to get the go-ahead to start the new season – but not be allowed to because of a court injunction.
That’s the real danger the league now faces. Hearts and Partick Thistle tooling up for a fight might be getting dismissed as sour grapes and howling at the moon.
But it’s not even a fight they need to win in the courtroom. If they can get a judge to boot the can down the road far enough the new season might not be allowed to start.
Sure, the Jambos and Jags might be going down regardless but they could take a few bodies with them on the way.
That’s what the SPFL are hoping – and praying – they won’t do. Don’t punish the rest, take one for the team.
But why should they? If every club in the country is acting out of self interest, why shouldn’t they?
It’s an almighty mess but it has been since the first Zoom call in this crisis.
The botched vote, the laughably bloated Reconstruction Task Force, the indicative vote, that was clearly just a bit of legal manoeuvring to show the members took the right steps before firing Hearts, Thistle and Stranraer out the hatch and into the abyss.
Every single action taken has been done to protect the new £160million
Sky TV deal due to kick in on August 1. But every single move made since is eating into that big pie.
Sky will get £1.5m over five years for games lost last season. They’ll also get their name on the league which means another couple of million a year up the spout because the SPFL couldn’t get a sponsor lined up before the pandemic.
BT Sport want their dosh back too, up to £2.3m. You can’t blame them either. We cut the cord and handed cup competitions to Premier Sports, sticking two fingers up at fans who now need three TV subscriptions to watch their teams.
Supporters are getting shafted left, right and centre. It’s a wonder the virtual season ticket idea has got past the competition commission, trying to charge 20-odd quid to tune in on their laptops.
Then they turn round and tell us a 14-team league would be a hard sell. We know it would. It has been voted down three times in 20 years. It’s a lame duck and the bottom eight would be a wasteland for half the teams for half the season. There’s a reason the 12-team set-up has lasted 20 years.
It’s all down to the maths of course. The SPFL would rather dip into the new TV deal payday-loan style to pay off their debts created by nuking the league early.
Even if the bill hits the £10m Rangers predicted in their Big Dossier of SPFL c***-ups, then it’s easier to swallow with the dosh coming in. They’re happier to dip into the greater pot, rather than risk it all together. Which is fair enough, if it’s just down to pure economics.
So is saving £120m rather than making sure weans in poverty get food. There’s no comparison when it comes to feeding children and football but even in sport there has to be morals over money at some point.