Stand by your beds

Published 20th Apr 2020

This week promises to be, even by Scottish football's recently demented standards, a belter.

Today will bring the first meeting of the SPFL commissioned Reconstruction Group, charged with establishing what appetite, if any, there is for a fourteen team Premiership and three leagues of ten clubs beneath that structure.

I presume they will, given the present safety first circumstances, convene by conference call, which begs one question.

Who will work the technology for Dundee's Chief executive, John Nelms, the man whose inability to tell yes from no put all of us in the noxious position we're in today?

And what, while we're on the subject, has a man whose conduct has provoked such consternation and condemnation done to merit a place on any kind of task force?

Mind you, the lady in charge of the group to determine if reconstruction is a goer, Hearts' Ann Budge, is the one whose club has most to gain from reconstruction.

Self interest anyone?

And then there's another conscript to the committee, Ayr United owner Lachlan Cameron, who is already on record as saying a fourteen team Premiership would be ‘insane’.

But then, insane appears to be the new normal for our game.

Show us a bad situation and we'll make it much worse by return of post.

Will some of our top flight clubs go for a system that would see three of them relegated to restore the Premiership to a size twelve when next season is over?

Whenever next season starts, that is.

The vote of eleven to one needed to carry the Premiership might be under serious threat given the gambling element involved.

Anyway, that's Monday taken care of.

On Wednesday UEFA may consider it only fair that the countries under their jurisdiction have the right to call their own leagues over if they wish.

On that basis Celtic could be confirmed as Premiership champions by Thursday or Friday.

Does anyone of sound mind really believe Celtic want it to be this way?

I'm putting the emphasis on sound mind here because parochialism can do strange things to influence peoples judgement of these matters.

My favourite call of last week to Superscoreboard was the supporter who vowed never to attend another concert at Hampden if Celtic were made champions.

Ever since I've had this mental image of someone explaining a deserted Hampden to Ed Sheeran by saying, "It's like this, Ed, Dundee voted no and then they changed their mind and voted yes."

Celtic would love to play the league to a thirty-eight game conclusion, but how long do you wait to see if that is feasible?

There are plenty of reasons why everyone wants the game to resume, all of them valid, but no indication of how, and when, it can restart.

But would a potentially seismic week also benefit from the announcement of an independent inquiry into Votegate?

Rangers certainly think so and they have now been supported by Aberdeen and Hearts.

That's one quarter of the Premiership, or forty-five per cent as they know it at Dens Park.

The charge is theft. The SPFL have, through their shambolic vote, stolen Rangers' chances of catching Celtic in the title race by curtailing the season.

If you had evidence of being robbed it would be in your best interests to bring it to the attention of those who could help you obtain justice, wouldn't it?

That's why Rangers should declare their grounds for calling out the SPFL Chief Executive Neil Doncaster and their legal adviser Rod McKenzie.

If it's in the public interest it should be made public knowledge.

It's not as if we need another layer of controversy to add to the unfolding story which has polarised the game and the country.

But if there's something we should all know then tell us. That would seem like the quickest road to accountability.