League restructuring - SPL 12-12-18 plan looking most likely :(

[loyalfollower 1,543]

It would almost certainly mean title stripping and surrender of tv rights again, or we wouldnt get license to play under the new set up.

I knew when this came about that the sfl clubs would go with it. And for what exactly,? A few hundred grand more spread over however many years?

The split is a joke, is a proven failure in every country it's been used. It's boring.

Why longmuir go ahead with this shit? Something stinks. I dont want to be part of any tv package that funds Aberdeen or Dundee utd.

Fuck it, we should give our notice to the sfa. Im pretty sure we could buy our way in the blue square premier.

I dont want any of them bastards getting any corporate sponsors through rangers unless we are left alone and recieve a full apology

[The Dude 20,026]

It would almost certainly mean title stripping and surrender of tv rights again, or we wouldnt get license to play under the new set up.

I knew when this came about that the sfl clubs would go with it. And for what exactly,? A few hundred grand more spread over however many years?

The split is a joke, is a proven failure in every country it's been used. It's boring.

Why longmuir go ahead with this shit? Something stinks. I dont want to be part of any tv package that funds Aberdeen or Dundee utd.

Fuck it, we should give our notice to the sfa. Im pretty sure we could buy our way in the blue square premier.

I dont want any of them bastards getting any corporate sponsors through rangers unless we are left alone and recieve a full apology

Too late for that I'm afraid. We already have one in place.

[loyalfollower 1,543]

Yes. We were blackmailed into it, and it ends in May. I dont think we should be funding the clubs whose owners wanted us buried.

It's like a guy hitting you then buying him his beers all night

[The Dude 20,026]

Yes. We were blackmailed into it, and it ends in May. I dont think we should be funding the clubs whose owners wanted us buried.

It's like a guy hitting you then buying him his beers all night

Blackmailed into what? The SFL selling their TV rights to the SPL?

[loyalfollower 1,543]

Blackmailed into what? The SFL selling their TV rights to the SPL?

yes without it we wouldnt get this season's license

[Guest dunky77]

I heard David Longmuir tell the BBC that he still doesn't like the idea of leagues of 12, but that he sees 2 SPLs of 12 as the only way to get agreement between the SFL and the SPL. In other words, the SFL are going to roll over to the demands of Mr Lawwell & cohorts.

It will mean the same teams all continuing to play each other far too often, but that doesn't matter - the money men say that's their best earner, so that's the SPL's only way forward.

What's the difference to the fans between 1 league and lower leagues, and 2 leagues of 12 and lower leagues? It's still a league of 12 and lower leagues!!

Nothing will radically change until SPL fans start voting with their feet - but, hopefully, that may be coming sooner than the three grasping lots of administrators we have for one lot of jobs think! .

[TravelingWilBEARy 4,319]

You can paint a shite all you want, the smell will still give it away.

That's deep, man.

[ZZed 4,510]

Ok how about 2 leagues of 20, one governing body that rotates the members every two years no club can be a member for more than two years, 5% of all home gates held in an account to be divided between all the clubs evenly at the end of the season by the governing body. No points for a no score draw, one point for a score draw and three for a win.

[sprotson11 147]

Many people cant understand why SFL clubs would agree to the reconstruction plans of the SPL.

To understand it, you need to look at clubs from each division seperately.

Clubs in Div 1 obvioulsy hope that a SPL 2 will mean more money for them

Clubs in Div 2 know that regardless of reconstruction Rangers will be in their league next season

Clubs in Div 3 will get 2 more home games against Rangers next season if the SPL plans go ahead

[God save charles green 73]

The final nail

[scarkev 3,540]

Many people cant understand why SFL clubs would agree to the reconstruction plans of the SPL.

To understand it, you need to look at clubs from each division seperately.

Clubs in Div 1 obvioulsy hope that a SPL 2 will mean more money for them

Clubs in Div 2 know that regardless of reconstruction Rangers will be in their league next season

Clubs in Div 3 will get 2 more home games against Rangers next season if the SPL plans go ahead

This is probably how it's being sold to these clubs and we are the cash cow stuck in the middle....My biggest concern if this comes to fruition is the power the likes of Liewell will have and how our TV rights will be sold if lumped in as part of the SPL....There are lots of other issues over the papering the cracks strategy of this model and with no pyramid system it will be the same issues in a new package.

[LiverpoolBlue 1,398]

Why are they even talking about restructuring?

After all, isn't everything in the SPhell going great? Never better?

Twats

[Clemdog 39,389]

It's all about the mula.

Scottish Football is fucked. It's stuck in a rut and will be for decades.

[ianb1547 3,767]

Every football club is a company / business

Does footballing progress or company balance sheets come first?

There's your dilemma.

[legalbeagle 3,734]

Presuming that they aim to start it the year after next, it means that the 4 poorest SPL clubs would get the chance to compete against us in that season, but not officially fast track us up the leagues.

Different packaging, same product, won't make any difference (although they will say it is a huge success because they will see dramatically increased viewing figures and audience figures because we are involved).

Interesting to see how our CEO reconciles this with his previous comments, perhaps this would be our opportunity to put some pressure on regarding the current commission and its outcomes.

[ForeverBlue_Since91 2,895]

When is the SPL going to die? How long will the tax man wait until he tells them how much tax they owe him?

[californiadreamin52 339]

Just how many of these clubs will meet eufa`s financial criteria and solvency test

[sonofbear 398]

....and the country's biggest, most successful, most financially solvent club will have absolutely no say in the matter.

Only in Scotland.

[El Carpintero 546]

Every football club is a company / business

Does footballing progress or company balance sheets come first?

There's your dilemma.

In Scotland they both come below Sectarian Hatred.

[Reformation Bear 6,453]

Some thoughts to add to the mix:

• If the SPL disappears and is replaced by a single governing body for all of Scottish Football that may make it easier for Charles / Rangers to put aside issues with the SPL as currently consitituted in terms of the stance of not returning to the SPL. If the circumstance arose Charles - as understand it - would not accept it but would ask Rangers fans' views and he may step down if Rangers voted to return. The damage done to Rangers by the SPL is too great and too far beyond forgiveness for Rangers to put that aside with the SPL as currently constituted. Charles has also stated that his second ambition having achieved his ambition to date is to see CL at Ibrox again so something would have to give.
  
• A single body would would imply a contest as to who the CEO would be. Doncaster and Regan's credibility is most probably shot to bits in many peoples eyes (not just Rangers) and selling a package to SFL clubs may mean putting the top slot up for grabs. D&R disappearing from the scene having (in their minds) salvaged something from their time in office would - in my view - most probably be necessary. That would leave the old guard who were instrumental in this mess had gone and Rangers then dealing with the new set up with a new Scottish Football CEO. Those who caused the mess and the poisonous legacy it has injected into the Scottish game need to be swept away.
  
• Rangers and the majority of its fans voted to start again in Div 3 and to work our ticket back to the very top on merit. No fastracking was envisaged or sought. Whatever the league structure that Scottish clubs eventually vote for does not, it seems to me, change anything of substance in the goal of working our way back through the leagues. Charles mentioned in his New Year message that patience would be required. He is right - even as currently structured this journey is going to take a few years even allowing for winning promotion at first attempt each year. Whatever structure Scottish clubs vote for our job is unchanged - win games and win leagues and then win the top league and back to CL.
  
• If the structure is somehow skewed to start to look like Rangers are being discriminated so that they remain a cash cow for lower leagues then whatever the outcome of the vote that scenario would not, I suggest, be remotely acceptable to Rangers. By discrimination I mean redistribution of wealth means Rangers props up the finances of the lower leagues and the SPL's ringleader team aids the finances of the teams in the top league. Ie a set up that keeps Rangers in the lower leagues for as long as possible so that the favoured team of the SPL can get trophies without any effective or consistent challenge and access to CL football, and the other 11 in that league continue to have the wealth generated by games against that team. Distribution of wealth risks meaning Rangers financing Scottish football other than the top league and clubs the top league learning to live within budgets at the footstool of the SPL's ringleader team. I sense a new phrase will be generated to replace the infamous 'sporting integrity'. Seems to me to be shaping up to be 'fair financial distribution'. You just knew all that money raised through season tickets and in the IPO was going to be targeted by the active harm brigade and maybe even some in the SFL as the primary source of that fairer distribution of wealth.
  
• If I've followed previous posts correctly the Clydesdale and Irn Bru sponsorship deals expire at the end of this season. So to attract renewed or replacement sponsors with at least the same financial package means, I think, that the new structure would need to be decided very soon and to be implemented at the start of next season. I don't think there would be too many potential sponsors who would be willing to put up money on a product unless they knew what the product was and had a chance to assess its commercial viability and attractiveness. That takes time, as does negotiating the commercials - so it seems to me a headlong rush is underway to railroad a deal so that there is enough time to attract sponsors ( a process which would take quite a few months). So, here we go again - another round of the Doncaster / Regan 'Armageddon if you do not agree' and other arm-twising of SFL clubs. No doubt we'll be hearing soon that unless the package is agreed to Scottish football will be facing its own fiscal cliff with, for many, a dead cat bounce at the bottom of the cliff.
  
• Media rights. I am presuming the contract(s) are date certain - ie they end of a specific date unless extended by the mutual consent of the parties. Or maybe the TV companies have negotiated a more sophisticated exit arrangement at times and on terms of their setting depending on how the product of televised Scottish football is selling and on viewer numbers etc. Rangers, as I understand it, has told the SPL and the SFL that they will not get the benefit of Rangers signing up to their media deals in future. I don't know if more money can be made for Rangers in cutting its own media deals than it would get from any restructured Scottish football media deal. It's clearly a commercially sensitive subject for Rangers so the interesting bit will be if a vote on a new league structure carries with it a requirement to sign up to a Scottish football media deal and bars or limits clubs from carving out their own media deals. Now that would be an interesting battle ground to watch.
  
• And last but by no means least and they should in fact be the primary consideration - fans. Trailing stuff in interviews is, more than annoyingly, what senior execs seem to do these days. A conditioning tool so that they can hide behind a 'I said so' statements downstream if the message is not likely to be well received. The media handling machine of a bit of information here and another bit there and let people join the dots or mis-read the intentions is the stuff of cheap politics. Fans are paying good money to support teams and deserve much better treatment in terms of information. With the management team now in place at Rangers I have every confidence that when proposals of substance emerge we will be given clear details, views, recommendation and leadership by Charles and the Rangers Board. They at least have the best interests of fans at heart.
  

[bluenosebrad 452]

RB some interesting points your raised makes for a good debate.

I agree something has to give between Rangers and SPL etc. I am very disappointed in Longmuirs recent statement as we all know SFL clubs voted that our proposals was the way forward, What has happened to change Longmuir mind?. Sky deal expiring, sponsorship ending. How can they offer more money to the second 12 as a carrot. To me the league sponsorship is not the money maker it the TV deal.

Clubs in Div 1 obvioulsy hope that a SPL 2 will mean more money for them

Clubs in Div 2 know that regardless of reconstruction Rangers will be in their league next season

Clubs in Div 3 will get 2 more home games against Rangers next season if the SPL plans go ahead

Is a concern, what if the vast majority of Rangers fan decided not to travel to lower league away games?? How would that effect balance, I am not saying boycott im just say what if we only took 100 fans to other grounds

[Reformation Bear 6,453]

RB some interesting points your raised makes for a good debate.

I agree something has to give between Rangers and SPL etc. I am very disappointed in Longmuirs recent statement as we all know SFL clubs voted that our proposals was the way forward, What has happened to change Longmuir mind?. Sky deal expiring, sponsorship ending. How can they offer more money to the second 12 as a carrot. To me the league sponsorship is not the money maker it the TV deal.

Is a concern, what if the vast majority of Rangers fan decided not to travel to lower league away games?? How would that effect balance, I am not saying boycott im just say what if we only took 100 fans to other grounds

Yes - good question - what has happened to change Longmuir's mind? As I understood it the SFL voted unanimously for the proposal it put to the SPL. There is surely enough brainpower in the collective SFL to have worked out in advance what their negotiating strategy would be if the (inevitable) SPL rejection and counter-proposal landed on the table. If they have not had that sort of nous then we are all in really big trouble in Scottish football (maybe even bigger trouble than seems apparent right now). Was the SFL proposal simply put down as a wish list in the knowledge that some compomise was needed? Fair enough but what seems now like capitulation is not compromise,

I wonder if the commercial alarm bells have been rung again by the SPL (league sponsorships ending and no replacements lined up - TV contracts ending in a near-horizon timescale - product losing (maybe even lost!) it's commercial attractiveness - infighting abounding - attendances and income at SPL games hit by absence of Rangers fans - a failing football structure - no credible leadership - and no vision for the future that is itsefl credible). And having rung the alarm bells again we revisit the territory of last summer where SFL clubs are strong-armed by alarmist messages from the SPL and faced with a 'go with the SPL option or face a financial cliff with a dead cat bounce at the bottom of it'.

Whatever the SPL and SFL come up with as a proposal to be voted on if it has the appearance of Rangers in effect being a primary cash cow means by which wealth is re-distributed to the leagues then I do wonder if that may be unacceptable and attendances at away games may reflect that. But I do still suspect a major issue will be media rights and whether a vote on a new structure includes signing up to a collective media rights contract. If it did, then still seems to me that redistribution of wealth really means that it is Rangers who remain the well from which Scottish football clubs drink in their financial benefits. 'Sold' no doubt as a sort of 'fair financial distribution'.

[JograBear 1,074]

These proposals have to be a joke....

[Gaffbear 4,096]

What they can't see is that moving teams about and making new rules is NOT what we need.

We need a more attractive product which means better training facilities and better coaches.

We need lower admission prices to attract people to the games and generate a more attractive product.

We need either a 2 month winter break where the players have time off in the summer and winter and supporters go to the games for most of the season in warmer weather..or summer football

Moving clubs and leagues about is like a bald man with a comb over..only so long can you cover up the problem.