Cormack must be smarter if he wants to shake-up SPFL
ONE of life’s straight shooters, Dave Cormack was no great loss to the diplomatic service. The Aberdeen chairman addressed the 42 clubs at Tuesday’s EGM of the SPFL.
As he explained why the Pittodrie side were voting for a Rangers resolution seeking an independent investigation into the curtailment of the league season, the US-based businessman held nothing back.
The standard of governance in Scottish football was as poor as he had witnessed. Proper business people, he suggested, don’t conduct themselves the way they do in Scottish football.
Fellow chairmen and CEOs felt they’d been rapped over the knuckles with a leather tawse. And all that bruising could take some time to heal.
Banking £567million from the sale of his Brightree software company in 2016, the Dons chief clearly knows his way around a balance sheet.
But amongst those he dressed down on Tuesday were Roy MacGregor, the Ross County chairman ranked higher than the Duke of Roxburghe and the Marquess of Bute in the Sunday
Times Rich List. Ann Budge of Hearts, meanwhile, sold an IT firm for £40million. And good luck telling Celtic’s major shareholder how he should run his club’s affairs. At the last count, Dermot Desmond was reckoned to be worth £1.7billion.
Listen, plenty of fans will feel Scottish football needs a good talking to. New and fresh thinking should always be welcome. And the chaos of recent weeks is a time for sober reflection. But to enact real change, Aberdeen’s Mr Big has to play the system. Battered by the criticism of recent weeks, one or two of the Premiership representatives on the SPFL Board will stand down this summer. And if Cormack wants to give the league a shake, that’s the place to do it. But to land that seat he needs nine votes from the very people he spent Tuesday searing with a verbal flamethrower. Good luck with that, Dave.