Time to ignore Topping’s ‘ruling’ and stop milking the fans

IT has long been the opinion of this column that no one does rows, chaos and confusion quite like the SPFL, an august body of men and women cursed with an obvious imbalance between their crisis creation and crisis management skill sets. Give these administrators a straightforward situation — a fixture list, a simple league rejig, the introduction of play-offs — and they will create the kind of messy farrago usually reserved for election day in a banana republic. Their stance on the issue of clubs adding play-off games to their season tickets as a Brucie bonus, effectively rewarding the diehards who keep their team alive by handing over a wad of cash every summer, tells you everything that is wrong with the Scottish game. First, following the unedifying scraps over who gets to keep what from the gate receipts, it reminds us that those who prowl the corridors of power at the League still see customers as no more than a cash cow, to be milked at every opportunity. The SPFL want their half-share of all gate money raised by these end-of-season eliminators, games which could generate up to £2million in revenue if the suckers — sorry, supporters — can be squeezed until they squeak. They have a load of clubs waiting for that dosh. Clubs who, for the most part, have done nothing to deserve it. Having allowed Hibs to grant free entry to their season-ticket holders last year, the League are now insisting that all of the clubs involved this season must stick to the letter of the law. Why, the SPFL have even wheeled out chairman Ralph Topping — a man who is to diplomacy and consensus building what Nigel Farage is to the temperance movement — to declare that: ‘Our rule book is not a pick and mix.’ Topping, the man who seamlessly shifted from his role as SPL chair to the same position at the SPFL after raising the hackles of just about every SFL club during the league ‘merger’, should not be part of the decision-making process any more. He and his fellow power brokers shouldn’t be heeded on this occasion, as there is a definite case for citing the Hibs example as a precedent. It’s hard to see how a sporting court could find against any club deciding to ignore the League on this one.