12Jul

Division One or Division Three? That’s the question

by michael

Share:

Hail, Hail.

It’s been a close season like no other in Scotland, with the liquidation of Rangers, and a new company Sevco trying to replace them.

We saw the SPL clubs last week vote to reject Sevco a place in the SPL, this week we have the SFL vote on Friday. The SFL will have to decide first whether Sevco should be allowed membership and secondly which league they should be placed in. This being the controversial part of the vote.

Usually when a new club joins the league, they need three years of accounts and have to be a member of the SFA, they would then be voted into the SFL Division Three. However the SFL board have put it to their members that the new club should be put into Division One.

This has come about due to SFA and SPL discussions with the SFL board. It appears the SFL board believe they could get TV deal from SPL for Sevco’s games and also the chance of league reconstruction. Having spoken to a director of a Division Three team, who had attended the meeting at Hampden with the SPL chief executive, it would appear that SFL clubs feel they have been bullied and threatened into accepting the deals put to them by SPL and SFA. You can also see from the reports from Raith Rovers that this was their feelings also.

The SPL have threatened the SFL by telling them that if Sevco are not put into Division One then they will stop the parachute payments that was part of a settlement deal for SPL to break away. I’m glad to see that Clyde FC have released a statement regarding this, as the SPL would be breaking a contract with the SFL. They also threatened to set up a SPL2 with Sevco being placed into SPL1 according to my source.

The SFL clubs have to stand united against the threats and bullying and say no to newco being placed in Division One. If a newco is placed into Division One then the game in Scotland will be tarnished forever. The SFA and SPL chief executives it would appear are trying everything in their power to help one club, a club that is not a member of any of the organisations, a club with six first team players, a club with no accounts. A club which has, according to reports, sold only 600 season tickets. Even a large amount of Rangers fans would prefer to start again in Division Three with a clean slate. A lot of Rangers fans are not sure of the new company Sevco either.

At the last count 14 clubs had already said they would vote no with only three saying they would vote yes to Division One, we can only hope for the good of the game that the vote is no to newco in Division One. Then we will hopefully see leagues based on integrity and fair play and not based on greed.

Posted by Celtic fan Michael Kane

Follow Michael on Twitter @m_gkane