Scottish Premier League clubs outside the Old Firm have announced their intention to quit the league following the collapse of SPL TV last week. The announcement came today at a press conference held by the ten clubs following a meeting at Hampden Park involving all SPL clubs.
The decision was made in light of the collapse of SPL TV last week when Celtic and Rangers vetoed the proposed new television channel. That decision has left the Scottish Premier league with no pay TV deal for next season leaving the ten clubs in question facing an uncertain financial future.
Celtic chief executive Ian McLeod and Rangers vice-chairman John McClelland arrived together at the meeting in Hampden Park admitting they had no fresh proposals, which might solve the problem. It wasn’t resolved and now Celtic and Rangers face life as the only clubs left in the Scottish Premier League if the ten clubs go through with their threatened move of resignation, which was served with a notice period of two seasons.
Hearts chief executive Chris Robinson said, “Under any other competent business, the 10 clubs intimated to the chairman of the meeting that we had to give two years' notice of our resignation under the rules of the SPL. The reasons for that were simply that the clubs do require to take control of their own destiny and future and to operate under rules of fairness in terms of voting structure and distribution.
“Any new league that we set up will be founded on fairness in terms of voting structure of a similar pattern to the English Premiership where a two-thirds, one-third situation is the voting structure and this distribution is a much fairer situation than the current SPL. There is a process to go through to put that in place but we certainly intimated that will be happening in the weeks ahead.”
Filed by Johnny Proby
