As I understand it (there will, no doubt, be a stampede to correct me if I’m wrong), there is currently no mechanism for ushering a “Newco” successor to a liquidated member club straight back into the SPL, with or without point or financial penalty.

Why would there be?  Much simpler just to follow precedent and / or just let natural justice take its course.  Let any member club that either carelessly or callously imperils its own very existence face the consequences of liquidation … extinction; and let any “phoenix” club that arises from the ashes as a focal point for the consequentially orphaned fan base of the extinct member, simply start from scratch, like any other newly-established club – which is exactly what it would be!

Such will no longer be the case should the newly announced SPL Executive proposals on the (presumably hypothetical) scenario of a current member club finding itself threatened with extinction (say, as a result of institutionally sustained fiscal irresponsibility) be voted in.  Why, then, would they be – voted in, that is?  And why now, at this precise and arbitrary moment of time in the history of Scottish league football?  Is the timing purely co-incidental?

Well, you can make up your own mind about that.

Problem is, until now, no-one had seriously considered the possibility that the unthinkable might ever happen to a club … nay, “institution” … that is vital to our national well-being and sanity, let alone the continued viability of Scottish football itself – allegedly.

Oh, it might happen to some diddy team of no real consequence – and Hell mend them!  Who needs lame ducks, anyway?  But not the almighty indispensibles, without whom the world as we know it would apparently cease to exist – no, that would never do.  It’s unthinkable.  Something really has to be done.  You know it makes sense.

Well … no … it doesn’t, actually.  It’s just naked opportunism; self-interested favouritism; blatant expediency, pure and simple, pandering to the basest instincts of a Scottish football community so pre-disposed to bending the knee at the altar of Mammon and “sporting” hegemony that it just can’t help itself – and if there’s a scintilla of integrity left in the corridors of power of the clubs throughout this quaint little country of ours, the proposals (or, at least, the clause contained therein that would grant an automatic right of “Newco” re-entry in the wake of liquidation while still an SPL member) will be booted unceremoniously into touch at the earliest opportunity.

Watch this space … but don’t hold your breath!

Johnbhoy