BEYOND BELIEF
Former Hearts and Dundee United chief laments loss of money-spinning derbies and insists the SPFL blew open goal by killing reconstruction
SCOTLAND’S top flight will be a poorer place without Hearts. Our Premiership is rendered a less valuable product by their absence.
With even cast-iron TV contracts open to renegotiation and no sign of a title sponsor on the horizon, throwing one of the biggest clubs a lead weight instead of a lifeline certainly represents a bold move. Brave, even.
And, according to one veteran of Scottish football realpolitik, questions must be asked of the SPFL — duty-bound to protect the commercial worth of the competition — after a cabal of self-interested clubs killed off reconstruction.
As yesterday’s show of hands effectively condemned the Jambos to a new life in the Scottish Championship, pending legal challenge, David Southern could hardly contain his frustration.
The former Hearts and Dundee United chief executive, understandably torn by seeing one of his old clubs replaced by another, believes the 14-team top flight so quickly discarded was not only workable but more valuable than the current set-up.
Not only would the traditional ‘Big Six’ — the Old Firm, New Firm and Edinburgh rivals — be together in the elite league for the first time since season 2011-12.
But Inverness Caley Thistle coming up would have brought the Highland derby back to the Premiership.
A lack of sympathy for a Hearts team who were easily the worst in the league, almost certain to have been relegated in any event, shouldn’t blind anyone to the facts of the situation.
‘The SPFL have a duty, a commercial, corporate, company duty, to produce the best possible product for its commercial partners,’ Southern told Sportsmail.
‘There are question marks as to whether they are actually offering that. You are trying to sell the league sponsorship, the title rights. So, for God’s sake, present the best possible product you can.
‘Neil Doncaster, in his negotiations with Sky now, is trying to preserve the value of the new broadcast deal — because we might not start football from August 1 with Sky.
‘You would have thought it was an open goal, reconstruction. But for some reason a group of Premiership clubs didn’t want it.
‘It does defy belief. But it’s done, it’s been voted on. It’s now whether Hearts, Partick Thistle and Stranraer take further action, which they would be well within their rights to do.’
Hearts, it must be said, didn’t do much to save themselves before play was suspended. Four league wins left them four points adrift of 11th place, a full six points behind the absolute safety of tenth spot, when the shutdown took effect.
But nothing about this coronavirus crisis is normal. Which means the SPFL had an opportunity to take extraordinary measures.
Southern, explaining the commercial rationale behind reconstruction, said: ‘You are losing your third-biggest team, if you’re talking turnover, attendances and so on, by demoting them.
‘You’re weakening your product. And my personal view, without apportioning blame, is that it’s a missed opportunity.
‘It was a chance for the SPFL to shore up — even enhance — the product it’s giving to commercial partners, broadcasters and supporters.
‘You could have had a situation, if reconstruction hadn’t been elbowed out without even a plan being presented, that would have been better for everyone.
‘The fact that no plan was put together was a low blow for the game because you had the chance to have Old Firm derbies, preserve the Edinburgh derby and return to the Highland derbies, because Inverness would have come up.
‘You get Aberdeen v Dundee United, the New Firm, and you’ve already got the Lanarkshire derby with Hamilton against Motherwell.
‘Now, just because you have a derby doesn’t mean you should get a place in the top league.
‘But it is creating a better product. Surely an enhanced league, preserving the Edinburgh derby and reintroducing the Highland derby helps Neil in his negotiations.
‘And Dundee United coming up is fantastic, not just wearing my old United hat.
‘They’re a well-resourced club with good infrastructure, exactly what we want in the top flight. And that’s the same with Hearts.
‘I just don’t understand why they have not taken an opportunity to make the best of the situation.
‘They always say they’re looking for the least-worst situation. Well, why not look for the best situation? It’s just a mindset.
‘Sky want to present its product in the best possible light. They’re very good at marketing the product.
‘But they need the best product.
I don’t think the SPFL have helped themselves in the negotiations.
‘And I have to say that, if I was at Sky, I would be thinking: “Well, our product is weaker now…”.’
Hearts are one of the country’s biggest TV draws not just because of the derby.
Even in this season of nearrelentless misery at Tynecastle, there has still been something special about the place.
Rangers were turned over twice in Gorgie, remember. Some of the most compelling games of the campaign were played out in the shadow of the new — yet still somehow leaky — main stand.
Ann Budge’s clumsy handling of the reconstruction issue, from emphasising her club’s massive investment to siding with Rangers in the whole ‘independent investigation’ row, undoubtedly made rival clubs less interested in saving Hearts from the drop.
If a sufficiently powerful commercial message about the overall value of the product was put before those chairmen and chief executives again, though, might they reconsider? For the good of the game?
Southern laughed as he declared: ‘No. That’s the short answer! I’ve been around that table on the sixth floor at Hampden for 14 years — nine at Hearts and five at United.
‘So I know the characters, I know what the tag lines are that they all have. It’s not going to happen.
‘There is no such thing as the football family. It’s one of the biggest myths in the game.
‘I cringe every time I hear it because it doesn’t exist.
‘Usually the ones using the words are speaking with a forked tongue.
‘It’s about whether you realise that or not. Sometimes it does take you getting burned to understand that there is no such thing as clubs individually working for the greater good of Scottish football.
‘It’s club first, SPFL second, SFA third. That’s the order. Again, that’s not being defeatist about the game in Scotland. That’s the truth of it.
‘It’s just a shame that you do have club representatives talking about putting the game first, while behind the scenes they’re putting their clubs first.’
The SPFL have a commercial duty to provide best product for partners
There’s no such thing as family of football...I cringe when I hear that