Rangers went in too hard on SPFL and it’s cost them
PERHAPS there were some who had hoped for a dossier of lurid juiciness. Maybe the more excitable had anticipated something along the lines of Neil Doncaster doing a Donald Findlay circa May 1999, only with the songbook taking a significant deviation.
In actual fact, the document released by Rangers on Thursday morning was drier than a Mormon bar. There was no leery, easy headline and little to cause any real shock. Indeed, there was little to cause surprise at all.
In any case, by Thursday evening Rangers MD
Stewart Robertson was on air attempting to tailor the narrative away from bullying and coercion. His own interview may well have further derailed any attempts Rangers have of collating enough votes on Tuesday to bring forth the independent investigation that the Ibrox side crave.
Even ignoring the tweet on Thursday morning that declared Rangers would not be “bullied into silence,” the Ibrox club themselves on April 11 intimated strongly that there had been foul play when their statement suggested
“a lack of fair play and evenhandedness.”
The irony is that had Rangers opted for a softer hand in the first place, they may well have had a stronger case. Evidence of bullying, corruption and coercion was lacking.
What the dossier did shine a light on was what many suspected; that the process itself was poorly managed, fairly crude and lacked structure and cohesion.
That there could have been significantly better governance over the entirety of the whole affair seemed fairly obvious some weeks back.
That there are to be questioned asked of the SPFL and the manner in which they have handled the current crisis remain. The biggest question and criticism of all continues to point towards Dundee and what exactly went on around the botched, increasingly infamous, vote last month.
But ultimately there was very little that came forth into the public domain this week that wasn’t already there. The one detail that was fresh was the suggestion that clubs were not told about the possibility of a £10million bill to Sky if the season was not concluded.
It is difficult to view it as anything other than a moot point; for one, it seems a fairly obvious concern that the broadcaster would potentially take action after the league obligations went unfulfilled.
But what might have been the financial consequence if the league were to be declared null and void?
The other option, to replicate the English proposals of playing in neutral venues and behind closed doors, would not come cheaply either given the testing costs for 42 football clubs to play their season to a conclusion.
The more prescient question, now, in the midst of a global
But the bigger cost is the lack of focus on what should be the main concern at the minute; enabling clubs to survive amidst the most challenging of times and a time when there is no end in sight.
Instead, we are all caught in the crossfire of the war of words and the bitter recriminations that have been left in the wake of April’s vote on how to conclude the season.
There are ample criticisms to be made of the SPFL.
They stand accused of being haughty in their dealings. A full-on review of Scottish football and how it is governed is overdue and would be welcome by many.
But right now the focus and the narrative has to move on to the bigger picture.
ON another turbulent afternoon in Scottish football yesterday, there seemed an inevitability about the collapse of league reconstruction talks.
As the trapdoor opens and Hearts slide into the Championship, the only conclusion to be drawn from the affair is that for any change to have happened, all clubs had to be on board in terms of mustering a goodwill akin to something generally found in a Disney Christmas movie.
As civil war continues to rage and clubs nurse their own sense of grievance, the climate was always unlikely to be a fertile breeding ground for any of that.
If the Tynecastle club were to make a positive early move in terms of digging themselves out of the hole they created this season, they might want to check on the availability of John Robertson.
And the sight of Christophe Berra back in a maroon shirt might not be too fanciful either.