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?