ANY SENSE THAT THEY WERE ALL IN IT TOGETHER HAS BEEN OBLITERATED
SELF-intErEst? Oh, we passed that particular stop on the road to ruin some time ago. take a look around. tune into the deeply disturbing mood music. read any random line from the plethora of damned Club statements, with their messages of fury and dire warnings of retribution.
Everyone with an interest in scottish football, enthusiastic travellers and reluctant hostages alike, has been transported to a very, very dark place.
One where the notion of clubs voting purely to improve their own individual circumstances seems like a quaintly honourable throwback to a more noble age.
in this new dystopian sporting world, major players on all sides will now determine their best course of action by asking two simple questions.
First, what’s in it for us? secondly, and more importantly, how much damage is it going to do to ‘them’?
Any sense of camaraderie fostered by those first few weeks in lockdown, a natural by-product of clubs feeling like they genuinely were all in this together, has been obliterated.
When Dundee can openly troll the nation by declaring this ‘a time for integrity and impartiality’, while nakedly using the threat of their casting vote to angle for concessions, we’ve entered dangerous territory.
the anger being mined and refined in all corners of our national game is, quite frankly, a little scary.
Everybody is annoyed — to say the least — with the sPFL. Even more so than usual.
the league’s administration of a simple vote, albeit one on a complex subject, has been nothing short of farcical.
A motion to condemn their handling of the situation would literally be the only way to achieve unanimity among clubs in all four divisions. Or at least it would have been, a couple of days ago.
On all sides, the divides have now deepened to such a degree that they’d be hard pressed to agree on whether to use Zoom or Google Hangouts for their next online rumble.
something for those terrible teases at Dens Park to think on, as they blithely press ahead with those ‘positive discussions’ about league reconstruction.
the clubs vehemently opposed to the idea of ending season 2019-20 without playing every single game have, of course, made their feelings fairly clear.
to summarise, rangers — the sporting embodiment of that customer who always demands to speak to the supervisor — are livid. no one’s dudgeon is higher, none can match the indignation of the ibrox outfit.
Heads most roll. Or else. Or something. to be honest, it’s not always easy to keep pace with the position of a club whose own representative on the sPFL board occasionally seems out of the loop.
Hearts are just as angry. Although you may have to read one of Ann Budge’s lengthy statements several times — goodness, haven’t we suffered enough? — to get to the nub of the owner’s complaint.
Partick thistle consulting a QC is just so them, of course. On match days at Firhill, you probably couldn’t kick a size 5 into the John Lambie stand without hitting a legal eagle who had ‘taken silk’. Fair play to the Jags, though, for actually instructing a learned friend to make mincemeat of sPFL procedures in this instance. nice work.
if the noisy minority are fired up, what about the 85 per cent who voted for the sPFL board’s proposals to call time, at least partly, on season 2019-20?
Even some of those with little residual affection for embattled league chief executive neil
Doncaster have been utterly appalled by the tactics of the ‘no’ camp.
inverness chief executive scot Gardiner emerging as a key operator, an almost perfectly on-trend piece of casting on the eve of a footballing apocalypse, has left many in the game pitched somewhere between baffled and apoplectic.
Budge boasting about speaking ‘regularly and extensively’ to counterparts in both the Premiership and Championship has also raised eyebrows.
A number of boardroom insiders at top-flight clubs have, in conversation with Sportsmail over the past 48 hours, wondered why the Hearts owner considers it fine to lobby clubs in support of her stance — but deems the same action by others in support of the sPFL to be ‘bullying’.
Follow the money, though, right? the linking of payments to voting yes has been described by some as the equivalent of holding a gun to the heads of all clubs. that kind of language has put more than a few backs up.
And it’s almost impossible to describe just how angry some club reps — perhaps not those you’d immediately suspect — are about rangers demanding the suspension of both Doncaster and sPFL legal adviser rod McKenzie.
to be honest, targeting Doncaster seems more than a little odd because, quite frankly, what is he? A suit with a nice line in not answering direct questions.
Mr Moving Forward. A highlypaid front man who does the bidding of the majority.
He is alternately lambasted for not providing leadership — and criticised for being too powerful. Well, which is it?
trying to knock over a highprofile Hampden figurehead is hardly a new play, of course, in the world of scottish football.
if you can’t win a trophy, take a scalp. something to show the fans that you’re fighting for the cause, refusing to bend the knee … all that nonsense.
With no actual games to provide regular outlets for all of this tribalism, perhaps it was inevitable that the usual protocols — rivals on the field but partners in the bigger business of scottish football — have fallen apart.
instead of cheering on ‘your’ side, however, maybe take a step back. And think about where this ends.