craigkillie

The story you've included in the tweet suggests there weren't any great financial implications, since Sky were instead compensated with extra televised games.

It's just a rehashed version of the same proposal they put forward about a year ago, that's why it has the detail.

We've been having two (completely optional) team "coffee mornings" every week and that seems to have gone pretty well. Just basically a chance for a catch up. We do actually all tend to get on pretty well beyond work though so it's probably a bit different to most workplaces.

He did well in those leagues before as well, so he'll be a known quantity.

It's possible certainly, but when we were in the play-offs before Euro 2016 two of our players were going to play in the tournament for something called "Northern Ireland".

It would be fairly straightforward for him to sponsor the league in some manner or other using this money, but for the SPFL to pass a resolution altering the prize money structure to ensure that his contribution was evenly split across the clubs.

If you're running them into early June that would involve scrapping the Premiership play-offs, because it will almost certainly have to be finished by the end of May if UEFA return to their normal rules, and you'd expect they would with the Euros looming.

Murray is one of the worst journalists in Scotland for pushing his own personal agenda, so I'm not surprised to see he went for the version of the story that fitted in with what he wanted to think.

Kheredine Idessane just tweets whatever Scott Gardiner tells him to, so I wouldn't necessarily rely on him as a source.

Why should clubs be expected to make their players redundant just to suit other clubs' unwillingness to play?

Apparently Celtic did a very good job of shutting theirs down last season, no idea how they did it or to what extent.

Rugby Park would probably be fine. Rather than using the turnstiles we could open the massive big gates and let fans in through those instead (going even further still we could stop people at the outside gates of the ground (there are two in total) and only let them near the stadium if they have a ticket. There are a decent number of stairwells and toilets inside the stands. Also plenty of food kiosks, but these could be closed anyway if there was a big issue.

Aside from the utter shite highlighted above, the interesting thing from the Jackson article is that he says discussions are underway about selling streams for away games to fans on an individual game basis. That would appear to suggest that the notion of a cap can't possibly apply to non-TV games.

Motherwell have said that the streamed games will essentially be free to their season ticket holders, since they'll be guaranteed a discount on next year's ticket, proportional to the number of games they've missed this time.

Burnley won 2 of their first 15 league matches that season and and eventually scraped a 15th place finish.

Again, I don't think any of your argument here is in good faith, which makes it hard for me to engage with. You are guessing when the paper would have been drafted, and have absolutely no idea. Doncaster was involved with the committee relating to commercial deals as posted above, and delegated this to a large reconstruction committee - no doubt you'd have been equally outraged if he had decided to take control of this himself from the outset. The £9m "sweetener" was the clubs' money, which they were always going to get at some point, you're talking as though they magicked it up out of thin air ahead of this vote. Even Rangers' most pessimistic estimate said that the total liability to broadcasters from last season being stopped would be £10m, that included both broadcasters. Now you've decided that it was actually £10m to Sky (out of a deal that was worth £18/19m across both broadcasters, not £25m as you stated), even though several newspaper reports today have suggested it was reduced to £1.5m, to be paid back over the five years of the TV deal.

Dave Cormack also saying that season ticket holders will be able to watch televised games as part of their ticket cost. I'd suggest that leans towards the idea that Sky have capped the number of viewers for their televised games, not the non-televised ones. I'm sure it will come out soon, although perhaps the clubs won't mind this misinformation being spread for a wee while if it convinces a few more folk to buy season tickets.

I think it's conceivably the case that this is only about games covered by Sky. I agree this would make perfect sense. It allows home clubs to sell full season tickets but ensures that clubs don't end up in competition with Sky.

The proposal to end the season (from April, not March) came from the SPFL Board, of which he is a member alongside various representatives from different divisions. It was claimed at the time that this was based on requests from several clubs, particularly those in the lower leagues, and that was borne out by the fact that the vast majority of the clubs voted in favour of it. The current proposal is directly linked to that, in the sense that the April paper included a commitment to explore league reconstruction. Therefore the idea of at least discussing league reconstruction was the will of all of the clubs who voted in favour of that proposal (in addition to many of those who voted against it). Budge was put in charge of that committee, which ultimately made a pigs ear of the whole thing to the extent that they couldn't even reach enough agreement to produce a proposal that the clubs could vote on. It's worth noting that there were several other committees meeting at the same time on a number of issues as part of the SFA/SPFL Joint Response Group, and Doncaster himself was chairing the one related to broadcasting rights. Possibly he now has a bit more time on his hands now that he's sorted that out.

It's not his job to "believe" anything - it's his job to act on the will of the clubs. He can certainly recommend things, but the SPFL is a club led organisation and if they disagree then they'll vote it down.

Also confirms that the season ticket will be valid for 19 actual in-person games, which I think is a great idea. I think Hearts have done similar.

There's real vibes of a frustrated boss from Doncaster here. Asks Budge on two separate occasions to see if she can propose a sensible reconstruction plan, then gets so exasperated by her utterly hopeless incompetence than he steps in himself to try and get something sorted. I suspect he'll get a bunch of different answers from the clubs about what would work for them, so I'm not convinced it's going to make it more likely to happen, but at least there's a bit of flexibility compared to Budge's weird insistence on acting as though she held the power here.

I assume you mean the 2020/21 Scottish Cup here? If so, the preliminary rounds would normally take start in August, but that's obviously not going to happen given that none of the teams who usually participate in them will be able to play by then. I'm also not sure why it would be a big deal if the 2019/20 tournament finishes after the 2020/21 one has started.

This has nothing to do with Ofcom - they involve themselves with the "crown jewels" sporting events, which the government require to be broadcast on domestic TV (eg the World Cup, European Championships). UEFA have a rule about broadcast blackout windows and each national association can decide whether they want to put forward a window. I have no idea why you think the government would be even slightly bothered about whether football matches were broadcast at 3pm on a Saturday or not.

Ewan Murray is full of shite at the best of times, wouldn't be surprised if he's got the wrong end of the stick somewhere given that absolutely nobody else has reported that.