Coronavirus and the Scottish Championship

[AyrExile]

7 minutes ago, RandomGuy. said:

The biggest question is why hes waited until days before the final reconstruction vote, IMO.

Is that the final reconstruction vote of the final reconstruction vote? There have been plenty of key dates recently and with the game in financial trouble I expect there to be a few more. It’s good to see Budge helping Doncaster get access to important investors that are out there 

[Bairnardo]

Sounds like free money!

Which means there is a catch, as there is always a catch, so what is it?

Also he gave 9 million to Hearts?

What the hell did they do with it??

My guess... a LOT of ching for Levien and Budge.

[AUFC 1910]

I think we will end up seeing Budge and Levein in a Louis Theroux documentary soon probing deep into the couple’s weird marriage arrangement

[D'Jaffo]

Is that the final reconstruction vote of the final reconstruction vote? There have been plenty of key dates recently and with the game in financial trouble I expect there to be a few more. It’s good to see Budge helping Doncaster get access to important investors that are out there 

Budge isn’t interested in helping Doncaster. She’s only interested in helping herself. Nothing about this whole situation seems right.

[rainbowrising]

Tom English spent the whole of May kicking the crap out of the SPFL Board for incompetence (if not worse) but thinks that with a simple phone call they should accept money without any questions via a tip off from Budge?  It is amazing how journos up here can just jump from self righteous anger to the sort of person that responds to a letter from Nigeria telling them they are a creditor in multi-million £ oil pay out.

Major issue here is of course Budge, the person working for league reconstruction,own relegated club and just happens to have a contact willing to put large sums of money in to the entire league structure.

[AyrExile]

3 minutes ago, D'Jaffo said:

Budge isn’t interested in helping Doncaster. She’s only interested in helping herself. Nothing about this whole situation seems right.

Of course she isn’t but Doncaster’s record in attracting sponsors etc is open to debate so every little helps. Budge helping herself is unfortunately the way of the Scottish game. Each decision made seems to be for the benefit of a few which in turn then shafts a few others. Nothing about this whole situation is right particularly Doncaster being paid a very handsome salary to command a rabble. Strong leadership instead of dictatorship would have prevented much of this playing out in public 

[BFTD]

1 hour ago, parsforlife said:

Is journalism just phoning budge and writing down whatever she tells you now?

That's how Scottish sports journalism worked for my father, it's how it's worked for me, and it's worked out pretty well so far!

[Forest_Fifer]

If this guy wants to put money into the SPFL, why doesn't he just buy the league naming sponsorship? He could donate it to the NHS or some other charity if he liked, if he diesnt want it to have his trust name on it.

[Guest Flash]

11 minutes ago, Forest_Fifer said:

If this guy wants to put money into the SPFL, why doesn't he just buy the league naming sponsorship? He could donate it to the NHS or some other charity if he liked, if he diesnt want it to have his trust name on it.

And why did Budge not just give him Doncaster’s contact details? All talks could have remained confidential - it isn’t like they would be meeting face to face anyway. Why disclose you have lined up a mystery donor instead of just lining him up and keeping quiet?

[Dr Koop]

10 minutes ago, Flash said:

And why did Budge not just give him Doncaster’s contact details? All talks could have remained confidential - it isn’t like they would be meeting face to face anyway. Why disclose you have lined up a mystery donor instead of just lining him up and keeping quiet?

Finder's fee, perhaps.

[BFTD]

I think the answer to all of these questions, and more, is likely to be, "because that wouldn't make the SPFL board look bad".

She's going actually going beyond garnering sympathy for Doncaster; she's making The Rangers look less like a bunch of c***s, and just a club/company doing what plenty of others would do in their position. Still no idea what she thinks she's going to get out of it, other than spiteful satisfaction. Surely she knows she's back in the Championship next season, whatever happens now.

[Guest Flash]

4 minutes ago, Dr Koop said:

Finder's fee, perhaps.

Budge still wouldn’t need to have gone public. She and her advisers could have done all the work behind the scenes. She could have been publicly disclosed as the introducer after it was all done and dusted. You’d think if a benefactor wanted to remain anonymous, the last thing you would do is disclose that you even had somebody lined up. Maybe it is difficult to keep everything confidential when so many clubs are involved, but I don’t understand why the introducer would go public with the offer from the outset.

[Homer Thompson]

4 minutes ago, BigFatTabbyDave said:

I think the answer to all of these questions, and more, is likely to be, "because that wouldn't make the SPFL board look bad".

She's going actually going beyond garnering sympathy for Doncaster; she's making The Rangers look less like a bunch of c***s, and just a club/company doing what plenty of others would do in their position. Still no idea what she thinks she's going to get out of it, other than spiteful satisfaction. Surely she knows she's back in the Championship next season, whatever happens now.

Unless there arent enough clubs able to compete next season, so some kind of reconstruction is necessary. She made vague reference to that during her interview.

Of course, Budge has done all she can to make sure that doesnt happen by lining up this mystery benefactor who the big, bad old SPFL wont even talk to.

[BFTD]

3 minutes ago, Mr X said:

Unless there arent enough clubs able to compete next season, so some kind of reconstruction is necessary. She made vague reference to that during her interview.

Of course, Budge has done all she can to make sure that doesnt happen by lining up this mystery benefactor who the big, bad old SPFL wont even talk to.

Aye, that really is the fevered fantasy, isn't it. And that's from before Hearts were in freefall.

[Pie Of The Month]

37 minutes ago, Forest_Fifer said:

If this guy wants to put money into the SPFL, why doesn't he just buy the league naming sponsorship? He could donate it to the NHS or some other charity if he liked, if he diesnt want it to have his trust name on it.

If the offer is genuine then offering it as sponsorship would mean it goes into the prize money pot and is distributed under the current model where 82.25% of the money would go to the Premiership clubs. I'm not sure that the best way to help clubs survive this is to hand over the lion's share of any funding to the clubs that need it the least.

[Guest Flash]

2 minutes ago, Pie Of The Month said:

If the offer is genuine then offering it as sponsorship would mean it goes into the prize money pot and is distributed under the current model where 82.25% of the money would go to the Premiership clubs. I'm not sure that the best way to help clubs survive this is to hand over the lion's share of any funding to the clubs that need it the least.

They could change the allocation so that the first £x million gets allocated differently, with x = donation. They will need to document how it will be allocated anyway.

[craigkillie]

4 minutes ago, Pie Of The Month said:

If the offer is genuine then offering it as sponsorship would mean it goes into the prize money pot and is distributed under the current model where 82.25% of the money would go to the Premiership clubs. I'm not sure that the best way to help clubs survive this is to hand over the lion's share of any funding to the clubs that need it the least.

I agree that any handout specifically for lower league clubs can't go via the traditional sponsorship route. This is surely another reason why Doncaster can't simply accept the money without being provided with some sort of document outlining how these mystery benefactors want to distribute it.

I'm not necessarily sure that it's true that the Premiership clubs need the money the least though. Every club will be severely short of funds right now - I can't see why Motherwell would somehow be better off than Queen of the South, for example. If anything, the larger the club, the less likely that ordinary fans are going to provide sufficient funds to keep them afloat. However, it is certainly true that the money from the benefactors will go further with lower league clubs, since they'll generally need less of it.

[RandomGuy.]

2 hours ago, AUFC 1910 said:

I think we will end up seeing Budge and Levein in a Louis Theroux documentary soon probing deep into the couple’s weird marriage arrangement

Theres a BBC documentary tracking Hearts, in a similar style to the Sunderland one, over the 19/20 season. You could see them filming during Leveins final game.

Whether that ever comes to air not I dont know, but it would be fun to watch.

[Homer Thompson]

5 minutes ago, craigkillie said:

I agree that any handout specifically for lower league clubs can't go via the traditional sponsorship route. This is surely another reason why Doncaster can't simply accept the money without being provided with some sort of document outlining how these mystery benefactors want to distribute it.

I'm not necessarily sure that it's true that the Premiership clubs need the money the least though. Every club will be severely short of funds right now - I can't see why Motherwell would somehow be better off than Queen of the South, for example. If anything, the larger the club, the less likely that ordinary fans are going to provide sufficient funds to keep them afloat. However, it is certainly true that the money from the benefactors will go further with lower league clubs, since they'll generally need less of it.

Motherwell received just over £2m in prize money for last season. Queens received under £200k. Theres one reason.

Bigger clubs have more fans and therefore more revenue. Obviously, they also have bigger outgoings too. However, the cost to test a player is going to be the same for all clubs, so just from that point of view the lower league clubs need the money more.

[craigkillie]

It's all relative though, isn't it. Motherwell bring in more but also spend more. If the income disappears but the outgoings don't then it's going to be the bigger clubs who are in a bigger pickle.