The SPL's Madame Bovary complex

As I wrote in my last post, the whole debate on SPL reconstruction has generated far too much heat for the light it has shone on what we want to do with the SPL. As the chairmen and Neil Doncaster bang on about the financial implications, the fans and many pundits bang on about the footballing ones, its become clear that the SPL debate has made us almost entirely forget the report that was the entrée for this turgid main course.

The SPL is our elite league, and I appreciate its future has is central to the success of our game, but what should be, as Inverness chairman David Sutherland pointed out on Sportsound last week, a discrete discussion held to ensure the best interests of all, has turned into a PR-disaster for the league and the main protagonists. Going to plead at the court of the hitherto-outsider Vladmir Romanov smacks of desperation, and surely sponsors will be soon asking questions.

As I listen to Neil Doncaster talk about the necessity for a 10-team league, I am constantly reminded of Keith Wyness’ famous quote about the Old Firm (almost 10 years old and still pertinent!) with the SPL now in the role of the old girls on Sauchiehall St. In fact, given the history of the SPL and broadcasting rights, I’d say they metaphor is more one of a Madame Bovary, constantly giving themselves to deeply unsuitable men in the pursuit of all that glitters, only to have their heart broken time and again. Where is this magical money coming from? What is it about the number 10 that’s going to get the Dirty Digger all hot under the collar? Listening to Doncaster gives me no hope that this continuing flirtation with commercial fantasy is going to end well - but it will give me no pleasure to say ‘I told you so’ when the SPL is left crying alone after being jilted by yet another broadcaster.

It’s frustrating also to see airtime being taken up with big-ticket issues that obscure an important and more fundamental debate that could be happening. SPL re-organisation was hardly top of the list in Henry’s report, but we’re getting sucked into it, before we (inevitably) get dragged back down that well-known cul-de-sac that is summer football. Even as a Partick Thistle fan, the permutations of a 2x10 SPL, or a 24-team SPL with 3 splits and chocolate sauce was really avoiding the crucial fact that any reorganisation this time must include taking the claw end of a hammer to the structure of the lower leagues- and that simply wont happen as long as we’re only talking about the SPL.

The debate has totally superseded what was an encouraging start to discussions about league reorganisation contained in the McLeish report. The more Doncaster and his chums trot out lines about the new order ’looking after all 42 clubs’ in the league, the more he is exposed. What happened to the pyramid system, and taking steps that will ultimately benefit all of Scottish football? Where are the B-teams going to fit into this? Have they even read Henry’s report? This is a completely self-interested debate, all the more hypocritical as it is being led by clubs who themselves moan about players having too much power, and distorting the game.

And why are the SFL clubs not making their voices heard? With the exception of John Yorkston, they all seem to be happy to go along with the idea that 2 x 10 is best for them. Where is the money to sustain them going to come from? Why do football club boards and owners in Scotland continually allow themselves to led up the garden path? Why cant we just accept that the SPL is the one elite league we have, and stop over-extending ourselves? While dropping down to the First Division may be challenging for some, as ICT and St Johnstone have proved, it is by no means a death sentence. Well-run football clubs will continue to trade.

Why do we need another fully professional, full-time league anyway? The first glaring omission in the McLeish report, in my eyes at least, was a failure to engage with what we actually want our football below the elite divisions to be, and what purpose it serves. There’s no money in it, and so surely any restructuring need not pay as much heed to matters financial as that of the SPL. If clubs cannot afford to be full time why are the almost obliged to under the current set up? Part of the fascination some have with lower league Scottish football is that there are 42 ostensibly ‘Professional’ clubs in the country, even though most of the lower 20 do not have the facilities nor any sort of fan base to justify the adjective in its normal sense. As a Jags fan, I know how close a club can come to financial failure (and could be again soon) after dropping from the top league, but why do we simply think that throwing money at clubs dropping to the SFL is the only solution?

Talk of an SPL 2 being a safety net to clubs ’falling of a precipice’ is naïve - it’s just creating another precipice in the form of the drop from an SPL 2. It is possible to have a league under the top one that has a mix of full and part-time clubs, and proper, strict financial regulation along the French model would take care of that. It would also put a stop to another Dundee or Livingston scenario, whose corpses , marking the way along the rocky path that is the SPL and satellite telly, are being conveniently forgotten by those who promise riches to the current SFL. We cannot continue to dangle unrealistic carrots in front of jumped-up, over-ambitious chairmen, but it is these same chairmen who are going to be rubbing their hands the longer this goes on without any real alternative.

So who will step in to the breech? George Peat? Jim Traynor? Or could Vladmir Romanov put 2x10 to bed for good and, by allowing us to get back to what’s actually important, become an unlikely saviour of the Scottish game?

Henry, I'm ready to be heartbroken

Of course I paraphrase Camera Obscura, but the title comes from my compulsion to write about the whole tenor of the post-McLeish report debate. Since we started seriously talking about the inherent problems of Our Beloved National Game ™, it seems the overwhelming majority of contributors, both professional and amateur have somehow been blinded as to what the goal of any reorganisation should be; In the midst of all this profound naval gazing we've still not really got round to talking about some very important things, beyond vague ideas of improving the national team & getting more magical TV moolah.

Yes, we know it's broken, but in talking about fixing it, we’re currently fixating on basic facts and figures (2 x 10 or 14 + n [n being the great unknown of what to do with the SFL]) we avoid seeing the wood for the trees, and avoid asking ourselves what we want any league to actually be, or to measure how we would judge the success of any reorganisation/revolution.

Reading this excellent article about the Gambrinus Liga is a timely reminder that we cannot continue to think about ourselves in isolation. If, since 1992 and the Premiership era, football economics have changed immeasurably, we need to ask ourselves where we are, and what we should be. If there was one thing that leapt out of me from the McLeish report, it was there seemed to be now real idea of what he was looking for when he went for advice. Why was he looking at the FA or the German DFB when he could be looking for advice and examples of football governance and organisation in countries with similar statures to our own?

The big 5 European leagues are the big 5 for a reason. They are the wealthiest markets in which to sell TV rights, and so have pulled away from the rest. But where do we even fit into that food chain, and what can we do to optimise our position? If outside this big 5 we can discern another distinct group of Holland, Portugal, Russia and Ukraine, should we consign ourselves to being amongst a smaller group that contains our neighbours in Northern Europe? Denmark is now above Scotland in the coefficient after all, and surely if Sweden or Norway get their act together they could do the same.

But I'm an optimist. I'd like to say that Scotland (thanks to the Old Firm) could, and should fit into that second tier, especially if you add the likes of Turkey, Belgium or Greece - but what discerns that second group from the others? Well revenue is obviously the biggest factor, (and I would be grateful to anyone who could point me in the direction of a handy link to the comparative values of European Leagues’ TV deals) but in that case Russia would be in the top 5. What seems to set them above the other also-rans is a certain level of financial clout, but also an attractive, competitive competition, and an ability to produce players for the bigger leagues.

Portugal is the poorest country in Western Europe, with a population of 10 million people, but has been unusually blessed with good footballers, from Futre to Ronaldo to Moutinho. But the Liga Sagres also manages to import good players, develop them and ship them on to the big 5. As does Holland, along with many other leagues that we would consider as less prestigious than our own - something that even a cursory glance at the January transfer window gossip columns reveals. From what I can fathom, the last time a big name from the Scottish league went to a big 5 league for big money was Alan Hutton. Before then? Gio Van Bronkhorst or Craig Gordon, although hopefully Kenny Miller going to Florence might kick start an upsurge in premium SPL exports.

I’m writing this as Real Madrid plays Villarreal, with Ricardo Carvalho and Ángel di María in the home line-up. Both are products of the Portuguese league, and Real can also call on the likes of Pepe, born in Brazil, but developed and naturalised in Portugal, and Mahamadou Diarra who played in Greece and Holland before moving to Lyon. Why can’t the SPL do this more often? Of course we find it hard to source talent outside the EU (young Ki at Celtic being an exception) , but that still leaves a population of about half a billion people on our doorstep. This is something that some clubs are beginning to exploit, although it remains to be seen if the likes of Rogne, Mišun or Jelavic will go on to have the success of Gattuso or Van Bronkhorst.

This debate is quickly becoming tiresome as the media (probably correctly) paint a picture of the heartless, money-orientated club owners against the well-meaning but naïve supporters, who will be the ones who will ultimately underwrite our Scottish football future. I don’t mean to suggest that becoming a farm league for the top leagues is the prism through which to view reconstruction, only that we need to understand what it is we want, and how that will be achieved. The best way to do that would be to look beyond our own nose, and to what we can learn from other leagues. That debate seems to me to be entirely absent, although I accept that over here in Turkey, many media streams are beyond my radar.

So if we are optimistic about this, and don't see this as just another post on the road to ruin for Scottish football, let's remember this - A competitive, economically sound SPL will be able to produce a better calibre of Scottish player, and players from other countries will begin to see it as an attractive destination, as obvious as that may seem. I don’t think that is going to happen with a 10-team SPL, and the incumbent pressure that goes with such a set-up, nor will a 16 or 18 team league make sense in footballing terms, even before the economics is considered. That leaves the status quo or a 14 team set-up for me, and I can’t wait for this phony war to be over.