SPL In Crisis – In Bed With The Devil

Zombie FC

Arguably one of the most galling thing in any argument is the compromise to repair it. In war, for instance, territory is given up or conceded, prisoners are released, deals are struck. Just yesterday alleged mass murderers were shaking hands with Queens in the interest of a new era.

So despite my hyperbole it’s something that perhaps is going to have to happen in the fickle world of Scottish football. We may have to accept stuff we don’t like for the sake of the bigger picture.

It’s looking increasingly likely that this Newco Rangers – hitherto christianed Zombie FC in this reporters mind – are going to find a compromise which will allow them to be seen to be punished and spend not three but one year out of the top flight – a top flight which will radically change at the beginning of 2013/14. It seems that Regan and his zombie wranglers are indeed going to sleep with the Devil in order to, what I’m sure is in their mind, save Scottish football. But will this be at the behest of all sporting integrity?

Despite what Rangers fans – themselves angered and hurt beyond belief by what has happened (so much so that the vile comments directly towards myself and other commentators like Jim Spence beggar belief) – think, or, perhaps, feel, Rangers are guilty of terrible, terrible crimes. All the rhetoric in the world can’t hide the fact that secretly playing players, or not paying for transfer fees, or tax, or the wee face painting woman, is cheating. No one else gets away with such a blatant disregard for the rules – could you, for instance, walk into ASDA to do your weekly shop, walk out without paying it, then offer 8p in the pound for it, then say you’d changed your name and didn’t owe anything but were keeping the messages anyway, thanks very much? No of course not, that’s silly, but it’s what Rangers have done. Make no mistake, this isn’t about going into Administration – a silly and lazy accusation thrown towards Motherwell FC by irate Rangers fans has been this very argument – “Aye but you went into Administration, two faced/double standards” etc etc –  and the Administration was dealt with by a years ban from Europe (itself a paperwork glitch, not an administered punishment) and a useless ten point deduction (Celtic would have won the league anyway) – so, please, Bears, enough already. THAT was your punishment for that… THIS is something else altogether. You liquidated. The assets of the club have been split. Senior players are leaving two by two. All you’re left with is a reserve team with a different name. As a result, RFC does not exist. Of course, the history does, of course the “glory days” do – as long as Bears remember them then they are real. But that’s not this team. Now the question is – where does this team start? What’s right and proper? The administration punishment was for another team altogether.

Of course, for a majority of die-hard footy fans, there is no option – Division Three. But even that is fraught with controversy – what about the criteria for the three years checkable accounts? A newco can’t have them. What about challenges from Cove Rangers or Spartans? Both teams have, on paper, more legitimate claims to the position than Zombie FC. What about the precedent set by Livingston, hammered by the SFA, or Gretna, gone completely? These are important, meaningful, right questions. The right thing today – and today I use right instead of best – is to tell Zombie FC that they no longer exist, that they must start outwith the SFL, and apply on merit, in three years time after plying their trade elsewhere.

For a team with the potential earnings of Zombie FC that is never, ever going to happen. So what will happen?

Well, for a start, the fans asked their Chairmen to listen to them, and they did. Votes were cast, meetings were had. More than half the SPL has already abided by their judgement – and of course I have no doubt Motherwell’s Well Society, of which this reporter is a proud member and has already voted NO – and Zombie FC will NOT be plying their trade in the SPL next season. Again, this isn’t a punishment. This is a decision of sporting integrity. A brand new team has no place in the SPL. Punishments – for EBTs, taking the game into disrepute, underhanded business practices and tax dodging – are all still to be administered.

Ah, but there’s the rub. Who do we administer them to? Zombie FC? But, by our own argument, this is a new club, not suitable for the SPL, hell, not suitable for any professional league. Why should they be punished for the actions of a dead club? Surely no other sanctions can befall The Team Formerly Known As because, well, we’re all arguing they’re dead? This very reporter calls them Zombie FC.

It’s a tangled, bitter, unholy mess. Our great and good – and make no mistake Stewart Regan and his henchmen are neither great or good, but what they’re what we have – need to salvage something from this. We have two years left of a Sky deal. To lose it would be catastrophic. Each club looks like losing £700,000 to £1m per annum. The game will change completely in the next five years. And yes, there’s a certain amount of brush fire to that, sweeping away deadwood, but we have to be careful we don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. Excuse the mixed metaphor.

So, can any good come from what has happened to Zombie FC? What can we get from it? Selfishly, what can we pick from it, whilst giving it a jolt?

Well, of course, the first thing, is money. They owe us. Big time. Should they get away with it? Of course not. A dead team can’t pay its dues. So it has to survive. How that money is distributed though – from both Zombie FC AND Celtic – needs looked at. Despite the fact that those two have been the biggest draws in the SPL, we’ve shown this season that we don’t have to put up with that, that they need a league to play in just as much as we need them to play in our league. So we renegotiate the way funds are distributed. What else do we want? What are we always going on about?

A league reshaping. Our league is small minded and insular, it needs to expand, to play on its strengths, and the strengths of this Country, itself small. Expanding the league is the right thing to do, for the game, for the money, for the country. So we push ahead with that. What else do we want?

Rules. Hard and fast rules. We’re all forever moaning that things are tied up with the suits and the Powers that Be and that rules make no sense, or that each association fights against its brother. Lets sort that out. Anything else?

A fairer distribution for SFL teams. Some clearly big teams – Partick Thistle, for instance, or Dundee – languish in the lower leagues for no other reason than money and opportunity. Look at the tumble of Livingston and Morton for instance. So we refurnish that.

But, as I said at the beginning. This requires money, and money is generated by interest, and interest, like it or not, comes from the Big Two. So, to get all that, to make all those great and wonderful and right changes, we may have to suck up one compromise. Just one. And that’s letting Zombie FC into the first division. It’s still a humiliation. It’s still a proper punishment. Make no mistake, the team has lost its star players, its lost its ability to play in Europe for three years and, most importantly, all dignity and sympathy along the way. But it’s one compromise we might just have to make. For everyone else. It might stick in our throat, but it might just be the thing that saves this game. Not Zombie FC, but our reaction to it.

Forever Claret and Amber

Ed

VFTES

The Ibrox faithful return to the First Division