Scottish league faces split

The ten Scottish Premier League clubs outside the Old Firm of Celtic FC and Rangers FC have announced their intention to quit the league.

Collapse of TV channel
The decision comes after the collapse last week of the proposed new subscription-based television channel, SPL TV, which Celtic and Rangers vetoed. The remaining clubs were angered by the decision and have now proposed to resign from the SPL with two seasons' notice.

Two-hour meeting
The decision was announced at a press conference held by the ten clubs, which followed a two-hour meeting between all the clubs at Hampden Park. Heart of Midlothian FC's chief executive, Chris Robinson, said: "We had to give two years' notice of our resignation under the rules of the SPL.

'Take control of our destiny'
"The reasons for that were simply that the clubs do require to take control of their own destiny and to operate under rules of fairness in terms of voting structure and distribution.

Voting structure
"Any new league that we set up will be founded on fairness in terms of voting structure of a similar pattern to the English [FA] 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.''

Celtic confused
Meanwhwile, Celtic chief executive Ian McLeod insisted there was no "hidden agenda" to his club voting against the SPL TV deal and admitted he was "puzzled" by the decision of the other ten clubs.

'Hidden agenda revealed'
He said: "We voted against the SPL TV idea as we had our doubts about the viability of such an operation. It was as simple as that. We entered the meeting on Tuesday to discuss details of terrestrial, radio and internet deals and felt the meeting was progressing well when the other clubs called for an adjournment. They then returned and gave us this decision. There has been talk of hidden agendas over the last week but I think the hidden agenda was revealed today."

Support for SPL
McLeod added that Celtic were still behind the idea of the SPL even though they have expressed aspirations of a change in the league's structure and talked up a possible move to join the English Premiership at a future date.

Compromise sought
Rangers and Celtic know that the current rules will prevent them making the switch. And the ten clubs are aware that TV deals are not as attractive without the Glasgow clubs on board. The hope now is that a compromise will be reached that allows Rangers and Celtic to earn enough money from commercial agreements to make them content and for the other ten clubs to feel satisfied that they are not merely being thrown crumbs by the Glasgow giants.