Lennon: We must make sure every club survives
● Celtic boss says SPFL set-up has to be saved
Celtic manager Neil Lennon has called for a collective effort to ensure all 42 SPFL clubs survive the financial impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
There is uncertainty over the resilience of many Scottish clubs throughout the four senior divisions in coping with the lack of regular income streams during the current suspension of the game which began on 13 March.
Scottish champions Celtic are in a strong position to ride out the unprecedented storm facing football clubs, having reported a healthy financial position in their most recent set of accounts with almost £33 million in the bank.
But Lennon is looking beyond the security of his own club as he expresses a desire to see a bigger picture and safeguard the future of everyone in the current SPFL set-up.
“I definitely feel sympathy for other clubs and professionals,” said Lennon. “There are great guys out there throughout the game and plenty of good football people.
“So it is important that we keep these clubs afloat and we maintain the Scottish game as it is because it is strong – or it was strong until this current situation arose.
“It was a really good product we had for the size of the country. So we must try all we can to keep it that way, if at all possible.”
As Lennon tries to come to terms with Scottish football being placed in limbo, he admits trying to make any clear plans for the future at Celtic is impossible.
“We’re just working dayto-day,” he added. “You can’t have a fixed date in mind for anything at the moment as it’s impossible to know.
“All the clubs want the season finished and all the countries and associations want that. We’re no different.
“But we can’t put dates on things and a lot of clubs are going to need financial remuneration from associations, eventually.
“I don’t know what is going to happen in the next few weeks. It’s too hard to predict.
“There is no point in me coming out and saying this, that and the other is going to
“It was a really good product we had for the size of the country. So we must try all we can to keep it that way”
NEIL LENNON
Premier League and English Football League made their decision and then we quickly threw something out to say we are going to stop playing football as well. English football said they were going to stop until early April and then they extended it but Scottish football said we are not going to play this Saturday and next midweek.
“As far as we were told, we were still to plan for football for the following Saturday. We couldn’t even at that point cancel catering and hospitality, and then two or three days later we got that very obvious cancellation.
“Then we were taken to the top of the hill where there was going to be an announcement from Uefa that was potentially going to make a decision on leagues across Europe. It didn’t come.
“We then had the first conference call set up with the league where we hoped to get some clarity on the end of the league. It didn’t come.
“I think we just need to have leadership now. We need leaders to lead us out of this and to make some decisions.”
Some of Scottish football’s main sponsors and broadcast partners, including William Hill, Ladbrokes and BT Sport, are due to end their partnerships at the end of this campaign, potentially complicating the option of calling the season to a premature halt.
“I get what’s going on behind the scenes in terms of negotiations with the broadcasters but we are all going to have to take our hit here, we are all going to suffer, we are all going to be in a worse position,” said Mcmenemy, pictured.
“Players are going to have to take some sort of wage cuts, clubs are going to lose money hand over fist and sponsors are going to have to come to the conclusion that they are not going to get their whole package delivered this season.
“But if we can just make sure we are all in it together and we have some sort of decision and some sort of leadership then I think we can start to plot our way out of it.”