Sunday 19 December 2010

Reconstruct this?

This article is slightly adapted from one published on the Sonstrust website as Whose 'Reconstruction'

Former Scottish Football Association chief executive Gordon Smith was straightforward about SPL Reconstruction proposals on STV’s Sports Centre last week.

It’s primarily about money rather than football, and how many times a small range of teams get to the play the Old Firm, he agreed.

In this particular discussion, the existence of senior football below the level of the mooted SPL 1 and 2 did not even get mentioned – but most fans of SFL sides being consigned by default to ‘regionalisation’ seem only too aware of the potential dangers these plans hold for us.

While the detail of the McLeish Report part two is absorbed and we wait for more information to be released by the SPL (supposedly on 20 December *), the implications of all this for clubs like Dumbarton was bound to be a hot topic at the Sonstrust AGM. And they were, I'm told. I was stuck in a transport jam.

On one interpretation of what’s going on, this is an attempt by those in the higher echelons (not least the Old Firm) effectively to reduce the senior game in this country to just 20 clubs.
But whatever gets said publicly at this stage, nothing is set in stone. So whatever the political machinations behind the scenes, it’s vital that supporters of lower league clubs make their voices heard in the coming weeks.

* Update: The meeting has been postponed to the New Year, supposedly due to the weather – though the emerging disagreement witin the existing SPL can’t have helped either. 
-------------

No comments: