Guardian article - season must finish

Carlton The Bear

Well-Known Member
Season must finish

Apologies if already posted, I can’t see see it anywhere else.


Scottish football doesn’t need fixtures to trigger warfare. Circumstances around Rangers’ financial implosion in 2012 were such that the security of legislators was a live issue and the row over where precisely the club should find itself for the next season so intense that many would now struggle to recall the outcome of that summer’s European Championship (Spain saw off Italy in the final). Administrators warned that £16m – and television contracts – could be lost if Rangers kicked off 2012-13 in the bottom tier. A doomed plan was hatched to catapult the club into the First Division.

By October, the tune had changed. “We’ve had to reinvent ourselves but that’s happened pretty quickly and clubs have adapted,” said Neil Doncaster, chief executive of the subsequently rebranded SPL. “The SPL and the clubs have adapted remarkably well to what people really couldn’t ever see happening.” They could even see the upshot on television.

Nobody could have reasonably foreseen League Cup semi-finals taking place at the same stadium on the same day, either. Doncaster tried that trick last season before performing the kind of embarrassing U-turn that highlights why he has been at the forefront of Scottish football for more than a decade. In that period, even Doncaster must have recognised the robustness of the sport over which he presides. The Bosman ruling, 25 years ago, was a supposed death knell for Scottish football. History tells of adjustment to economic crises, social crises and world wars. Scottish football prevailed then, as it will again; whatever its form.

Since coronavirus forced Scotland’s season to a halt, fierce squabbling has surrounded whether the SPFL is entitled to close its setup as matters stand: dishing out titles, relegation and – zing – prize money according to final placings. This would be an affront to the ethos of league football, as is the concept of voiding a season, an idea rightly dismissed. “Any attempt to finish the season with a significant amount of games still to play impacts upon the integrity of sport in Scotland,” said the Rangersmanaging director, Stewart Robertson, a man fully cognisant of his customer base.

The prospect of the SPFL distributing prize money imminently from a curtailed season naturally appeals to many clubs in these grim financial times. More sensible, surely, would be for the league to provide agreed percentages of said funds now.

Amending 2020-21 – with rules clear from the outset – by cancelling the winter break, postponing the League Cup or a multitude of other options exist should the SPFL’s board have a strong enough will. Instead – and it is very 2012 – a narrative has been allowed to permeate regarding all the things the league cannot possibly do without forcing clubs towards the wall. Weirdly, it’s as if Scotland is in a unique position.

There is no chance the SPFL would contemplate deciding a championship were the Old Firm separated by goal difference with eight and nine games to play. Celtic’s present advantage, of 13 points, should not allow officials to ride roughshod over basic principles. Whenever football restarts, 2019-20 must finish.
Instead, the prevailing mood: for Celtic, nine in a row. For Hearts, relegation; save a legitimate threat of legal action from Tynecastle.


On-field circumstance is particularly stark in the lower leagues. How can Partick be demoted from the Championship when two points adrift yet holding a game in hand? It would be a ludicrous denial of sporting fairness. The league would also be determining only handpicked outcomes if preventing teams from competing in the promotion/relegation play-offs that are an integral part of the competition. The Scottish FA has committed to completion of the Scottish Cup – halted at the semi-final stage – come what may, which undermines consistency of a joint approach.

Why Celtic would accept a trophy when short of standard conclusion is anyone’s guess; this would be a scene worthy of jibes for decades.
Celtic’s fiscal power means they can wait as long as it takes for the season to resume and canter across the line. Celtic are entitled to do as they please with their revenue – and have committed £150,000 to the most vulnerable in society – but it would have taken them to unassailable high ground had a statement issued last week, calling for a “fair and reasonable solution” to football’s hiatus, also offered to help toiling opposition.

When Hearts announced they had asked staff to take a 50% salary cut, monthly commitments of roughly £800,000 too hot to handle, dominos were due to fall. The Aberdeen chairman, Dave Cormack, duly painted a stark scenario after the “healthy financial picture” of just weeks ago. Aberdeen have monthly outgoings of £1.2m. “We are facing a collapse of income that is going to be almost impossible to sustain for a prolonged period,” he said.

Rangers announced last November they needed £10m to meet obligations before the season ends. A Europa League run, and generous key shareholders, will offset some of that but this is a business with annual staff costs well in excess of £30m and no current, serious cashflow.

Many regard discourse regarding Scottish football outcomes as tawdry as society fights a global pandemic. This game, though, is part of said society’s fabric. Maybe it should even be a form of tiny comfort that such a fraught narrative continues at vertiginous pace. And it will, for a while yet.
 
Not really sure what he’s saying amongst all that verbiage. It is the first article I’ve read though that asks why Celtic would accept the title from an incomplete season. We know the answer (they are shameless) but at least it was asked.

Yeah, he says a lot more but this bit is the most pertinent

“There is no chance the SPFL would contemplate deciding a championship were the Old Firm separated by goal difference with eight and nine games to play. Celtic’s present advantage, of 13 points, should not allow officials to ride roughshod over basic principles. Whenever football restarts, 2019-20 must finish.”

Thats exactly it. They’ll try and whitewash history and claim 13 points is an unassailable lead. It’s a good one, but not it’s not!
 
“Why Celtic would accept a trophy when short of standard conclusion is anyone’s guess”

Because they would rather this scenario than taking the risk of a restart where Rangers regain their form and C***c hit a slum in form
 
Some of the commenters on the guardian are absolute cretins - one guy called Bruce100 is one of the worst trolls mascaraing as a normal person you will find.
 
No way on earth are all domestic leagues in Europe plus cups & champions league/Europa league games going to be completed before August.

If football can get back up and running again by late summer it needs to be a new season you can’t go from one season to the next in the space of a week or two.

It’s time the football authorities actually started living in the real world and ended this season now.
 
The League will be played till the finish guys. No way will a professional league be declared void. Euro’s being suspended opened up the summer to conclude the leagues.

Only my opinion.
 
Not really sure what he’s saying amongst all that verbiage. It is the first article I’ve read though that asks why Celtic would accept the title from an incomplete season. We know the answer (they are shameless) but at least it was asked.

Can somebody maybe tweet the guy and point out they've made more ridiculous claims in the past - like that they were somehow unaware of a paedophile ring operating within their club for fifty years? And that they're not currently actively trying to cover the whole thing up with the help of a highly priced PR company?
Getting their grubby mitts on a trophy they hadn't actually won is hardly going to register on any barometer of shame.
 
They should do the 'honourable' thing and say the season won't be completed so we won't accept another tainted title as we already have enough as it is.
They should do the honourable thing and stop the separate entity shite and hold their hands up and show some humility. But I won’t hold my breath
 
The League will be played till the finish guys. No way will a professional league be declared void. Euro’s being suspended opened up the summer to conclude the leagues.

Only my opinion.
If possible then yes of course but it’s looking increasingly like it’s not possible. Thousands of people dying will make this pale into insignificance I fear anyway
 
The League will be played till the finish guys. No way will a professional league be declared void. Euro’s being suspended opened up the summer to conclude the leagues.

Only my opinion.
2008. The season cannot be extended. Sporting Integrity demands that it is finished on schedule.
 
Getting tiring now. Wish they’d just void it and let the world move on with what we are dealing with. People dying all over the place and people rattling on about finishing seasons etc.
I'm with you on this, fed up reading about it. Theres far too much going on out there to be remotely concerned.

For me the season ended that night against Leverkusen, in a game that really shouldn't have been played.

Giving out titles to tim, mick and barry shouldn't be the main discussion, that should be the survival of many football clubs and not just in Scotland
 
The sooner football is back the better but it'll be months away. We all know the season will be void everywhere (with the possibly exception of Scotland).

This sectarian virus will see to that (sarcasm).
 
The one thing that always pisses me off is this talk of how the top division clubs survived without us from 2012, completely overlooking the fact that the TV deal only survived because SKY demanded to be allowed to screen Rangers games or they would walk away. And never forget the fact that we did NOT receive one penny extra from SKY for being shown live every 2nd week - all we received was the same very small annual payment all clubs in the lower leagues receive from SKY.

Cheating bassas each and every one of the 12. They hate us but overlook the fact that without Rangers games in lower leagues being shown live, the £m's they desperately need to survive would have disappeared.
 
'Wierdly it's as if Scotland is in a unique position'

Why should we be unique ?

Oh wait a minute- I was forgetting the situation that we're in -
We've got a petulant excuse for a club who want to break every rule (including basic humanitarian rights) for their own ends & have unfair representation at every level of authority in sport, politics & the media, hell bent on sweeping aside any normal aspects of honesty, decency or common sense

I sincerely hope this is unique in World football
 
Sporting Integrity, clarity, the right thing to do, for the good of the game, respect. Why are all of these directed at Ranges, it's not us that's claiming the title when it's not been won yet
 
Even if they are awarded the most tainted of all tainted titles then nobody other than the blacktoothed followers of FC Bheast will see it as legitimate. Any celebration of nine* in a row will be hollow and in the pit of their blackened hearts they will all know their run stopped at eight*.
 
The one thing that always pisses me off is this talk of how the top division clubs survived without us from 2012, completely overlooking the fact that the TV deal only survived because SKY demanded to be allowed to screen Rangers games or they would walk away. And never forget the fact that we did NOT receive one penny extra from SKY for being shown live every 2nd week - all we received was the same very small annual payment all clubs in the lower leagues receive from SKY.

Cheating bassas each and every one of the 12. They hate us but overlook the fact that without Rangers games in lower leagues being shown live, the £m's they desperately need to survive would have disappeared.

Not forgetting they made up some spurious reason for changing the league set up and creating the SPFL.

Never admitting the real reason was that our presence suddenly led to the lower leagues having huge influence on the TV deal.
 
Getting tiring now. Wish they’d just void it and let the world move on with what we are dealing with. People dying all over the place and people rattling on about finishing seasons etc.
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