THE MAN THEY LOVE TO HATE
NOBODY thinks it’s perfect. It has its flaws. But the top-six Premiership split is still worth the hassle. The SPFL will announce the post-split fixtures next week to the usual catcalls. The annual accusations of farce and shambolic mismanagement.
Crusaders for sporting integrity are irked because Rangers have already played the other top-six teams twice at home and the SPFL now have to pick two sides to go to Ibrox a third time.
Hearts and Kilmarnock look likeliest to draw the short straw even if, football-wise, the prospect shouldn’t bother either of them unduly. If there’s a season to play Rangers three times at Ibrox, this is the one.
Financially, it’s a different story. Missing out on a home game with 5,000 Rangers diehards filling the stand has to be worth a few quid.
And supporters of the picked-on two will ask a fair question. Celtic can afford the loss. Why can’t they play Rangers three times at Ibrox instead?
The blame for that lies with an SPFL working party set up in 2008 to iron out a few kinks in the process.
They recommended that city teams should never play three league derbies away from home in one season. Not just in Glasgow, but also Edinburgh and Dundee.
They established a preference for teams to play 18 home games and 20 away. Playing 20 matches at home and 18 away can happen, but only as a last resort.
Crucially, the working party also found that the clubs in fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth place in the Premiership should normally be the teams to miss out on a home game because they have the least to lose.
Their bad luck has less impact on the title race or European places or relegation.
That’s why Hearts and Killie are likely to be the teams to play Rangers at Ibrox three times this season. Somebody has to.
There’s no question the split is an odd way to inject excitement into a predictable league.
Clubs should play 19 games at home and 19 away, no questions asked. In bigger leagues, they would find the way Scotland’s model works laughable and a non-starter.
But the vagaries of the top-six split are not the fault of SPFL chief executive Neil Doncaster.
If there is a farce or an old-fashioned shambles on its way in the post, then it’s down to the directors of Hearts, Kilmarnock or any other club facing yet another trek up the marble staircase.
Hearts chairwoman Ann Budge serves on the SPFL board. And a decade ago, former Kilmarnock chairman Michael Johnston headed up the working party trying to make the best of it all.
The split has survived for 18 years because the clubs voted for it. It’s the only way they can make a 12-team league work. If it didn’t, they would have voted to scrap it years ago.
Fans might yearn for a 16-team league with no split and one game home and away against every other team.
But that would mean eight fewer games a season for the clubs — and less gate money. Last time anyone checked, the turkeys still weren’t voting for Christmas.
BT Sport and Sky are not preparing to hand Scottish football a record deal this summer to secure the rights to Morton playing Ross County.
They want a guaranteed four old Firm games a season and as many Edinburgh derbies as they can shake a camera at.
It’s not just money. Strip away the financial considerations, and the split makes things a hell of a lot more interesting
Right now, no-one has the foggiest idea whether Rangers will finish second or fourth in the Premiership.
A third home game against Kilmarnock, Hearts or Hibs should be an advantage. But there’s no guarantee that it will be given the Ibrox side’s patchy record against the other teams in the top six.
The battle for second is a live issue — and the relegation scrap even better. Ross County and Partick Thistle are fighting for their lives. Dundee and Hamilton aren’t out of the woods either.
Love or loathe it, the split is here to stay. Broadcasters like it.
And when the sporting-integrity brigade climb off their high horse, they get to watch the legalised equivalent of bare-knuckle fighting. An unpredictable climax to the season.
When push comes to shove, isn’t that what football’s all about?