The incompetence of SPFL has already been documented by us for our readers, highlighting everything that went on the day before yesterday. SPFL has been desperate to draw an end to the current campaign by deciding the fates of the leagues through a bizarre voting process involving all the outfits from the Premiership, Championship, League One and Two.
The proposal was to crown Celtic the champions for leading the race and demote bottom-placed Hearts to the second tier allowing Dundee United to gain promotion based on ‘average point per game’ theory. This botched up motion required at least 75% approval by teams from all the leagues to go through which, however, was having a controversial deadline of 5 p.m on Friday.
Although Rangers and Hearts voted against the proposal, the remaining Premiership sides overwhelmingly agreed to it including the clubs from League One and League Two. All the focus, therefore, shifted on the Championship sides where an 8-2 result was required to go ahead with the decision. While Inverness Caledonian and Partick Thistle already voted against the motion, SPFL announced that they received seven votes in favour and were yet to receive one vote. The missing vote turned out to be from Dundee.
Leaked WhatsApp chats led to further chaos when it was found that Dundee actually voted before the deadline and their response was ‘NO’ (credits to Four Lads Had A Dream for collecting and publishing all the evidence) which got rejected for some odd reason. Meanwhile, the deadline was set to rush the clubs to come to a conclusion, and they did have 28 days to cast their votes under league rules. This all led to further finger-pointing and suspicions and Rangers’ official statement has now complicated things further.
Club’s interim chairman Douglas Park has labelled the whole voting process ‘undemocratic’ and asked for “SPFL’s Chief Executive, Neil Doncaster and its legal adviser, Rod McKenzie’s suspension while an independent investigation is conducted.”
They claim to have the evidence of serious manipulation via a whistleblower and have refused to hand it over to SPFL as asked by the latter via an official statement soon after the Gers’ explosive allegations.
SPFL statement in response to Rangers’ statement. pic.twitter.com/xjpzMTlfRt
— Jordan Campbell (@JordanC1107) April 11, 2020
Rangers proposed a change in rules “that would allow the SPFL to provide interest-free loans to clubs equal to the amount they would receive in prize money at the end of the season.”
But the ambiguity from Doncaster and McKenzie while responding to them back raises a few questions over their intention and interest.
Accurate timeline from Rangers to SPL-
Here is an accurate record of dialogue between Rangers and the SPFL board
Stewart Robertson sent a copy of RFC resolution to Neil Doncaster at 5.33pm on Wednesday.
— Four Lads Had a Dream (@4ladshadadream) April 10, 2020
The pressure must be on Dundee now which could have been avoided in the first place and Doncaster, a man of controversy based on his previous acts, is indeed answerable.
How Neil Doncaster Has Been Ruining The Ethos Of Scottish Football For A Decade
Since being appointed as the Chief Executive of SPL back in 2009, the 50-year-old faced backlash on several occasions in an attempt to make significant changes without proper planning and professionalism. He presided over the crisis that saw Rangers go into liquidation and underwent criticism over vote failure while working on the restructuring of the league. Although it succeeded in 2013, we are yet to figure out how it has improved the game in Scotland in terms of revenue or a financial upliftment. They have rather lost pace in Europe despite the inflation in the football market across the continent.
This is not the only instance that we are aware of! Back in 2010, the referees called a strike due to the SFA’s failure of providing them safety amid threats in various places following an incident instigated by the then Celtic chairman John Reid, manager Neil Lennon and centre-forward Gary Hooper over an incident at Tannadice. They publicly blamed Dougie McDonald for a penalty U-turn that went on for months which, subsequently, led to outrage among the fans, thus, threats and allegations.
Doncaster, at that time, could have dealt the situation in a better way as he instead pointed the finger at the match officials questioning their decision for taking a stance amid safety fears.
“There is a right way to go about it and simply calling a strike is the wrong way. It has to be preceded by some conversations about concerns and no-one has come to us with any concerns.”
Now, when the Gers have been asking for VAR to help the referees after a series of debatable offside calls, penalties, red cards and suspensions, Doncaster’s stance has been the same as it was during September 2018. He is still pretty much against it even though the top outfits like Aberdeen and Hearts demanded VAR a long back. The SPFL has not even confirmed who are in support of it and therefore, should remain a subject to criticism due to a lack of transparency.
Coincidentally, Celtic refused to clear their position on the much-discussed technology and the footballing authority of the country, too, has not shown enough urgency to address this concern or line up an alternate strategy. Football is bleeding in Scotland, and the flawed authorities must take the blame for their biasedness and dubiety all these years.
