New SPFL sponsor

[Iain]

Pretty pathetic from Doncaster et al to back down on this. Only encourages more nonsense from Rangers in the future.

[Orbix]

2 hours ago, Squonk said:

You really don't do irony, do you?

Can’t do a handstand either

[G51]

7 minutes ago, Iain said:

Pretty pathetic from Doncaster et al to back down on this. Only encourages more nonsense from Rangers in the future.

It's better than wasting the clubs money to get told to back down in court.

[Squonk]

18 minutes ago, G51 said:

The league leadership is filled with incompetent losers, and it's crazy that they retain support among certain influential media figures (both traditional and supporter-led media).

Now repeat that over and over again in your head. Be aware though that it shoots the continuity myth to shreds when all you can offer is "we're the same club because Doncaster/the SFA/the SPFL say we are!" 

[G51]

speaking of incompetent losers,

[craigkillie]

The point surely is that the rule isn't fit for purpose. It works when there is good faith amongst all the clubs, but when you have a party who are not acting in good faith then you are basically fucked in terms of securing any sponsor deal.

No matter who the SPFL had identified as a sponsor it would likely have been possible for Rangers to attempt to veto it by identifying some connection to an existing sponsor. That's their prerogative given that their goal is to bring down the existing CEO, but that loophole has to be closed off.

[G51]

1 minute ago, craigkillie said:

The point surely is that the rule isn't fit for purpose. It works when there is good faith amongst all the clubs, but when you have a party who are not acting in good faith then you are basically fucked in terms of securing any sponsor deal.

No matter who the SPFL had identified as a sponsor it would likely have been possible for Rangers to attempt to veto it by identifying some connection to an existing sponsor. That's their prerogative given that their goal is to bring down the existing CEO, but that loophole has to be closed off.

The rule will remain in place, because there's no way the Old Firm are going to agree to let their own commercial deals be diminished or potentially voided just because Neil Doncaster manages to arrange a title sponsor worth about eight quid a year.

[Orbix]

On a more serious note, have the SFA published anything about the investigation by the Compliance Officer into the dispute? 

[craigkillie]

The rule will remain in place, because there's no way the Old Firm are going to agree to let their own commercial deals be diminished or potentially voided just because Neil Doncaster manages to arrange a title sponsor worth about eight quid a year.

Their own deals obviously aren't voided by this given that both clubs were previously able to have gambling sponsors while playing in three competitions sponsored by three different gambling companies. This is an imagined issue being exploited by a club with a grievance.

If the SPFL is supposed to find a title sponsor which is not in the same industry as any sponsor associated with any of the 42 member clubs then they're never going to have a single sponsor of any sort.

[G51]

2 minutes ago, craigkillie said:

Their own deals obviously aren't voided by this given that both clubs were previously able to have gambling sponsors while playing in three competitions sponsored by three different gambling companies. This is an imagined issue being exploited by a club with a grievance.

If the SPFL is supposed to find a title sponsor which is not in the same industry as any sponsor associated with any of the 42 member clubs then they're never going to have a single sponsor of any sort.

“That a Club shall not, other than in respect of a Commercial Contract relating to Radio Transmission or Transmission, be obliged to comply with this Rule I7 if to do so would result in that Club being in breach of a contractual obligation entered into prior to the Commercial Contract concerned being approved to be entered into by the Company the Clubs and each of them shall license and otherwise provide to the Company the use of such of their other rights, facilities and properties as may be required by the Company to enable the Company to enter into and/or fulfil its obligations under and in terms of Commercial Contracts entered or to be entered into by the Company.”

The Ladbrokes/William Hill/32Red stuff is a complete red herring and a misunderstanding of what actually happened here. The issue is not that the sponsor was in the same industry as Parks. It's that Rangers had signed a contract giving Parks the right to advertise motor vehicles at the exclusion of their competitors.

This wasn't an issue with Ladbrokes, because 32Red do not have the same clauses in their contract.

To reiterate, Neil Doncaster knew all of this.

[Squonk]

1 hour ago, G51 said:

speaking of incompetent losers,

Try playing the ball instead of the man. Your reply simply reinforces the fact that you can't counter my argument without resorting to personal insults. Put simply, you are simultaneously slaughtering Doncaster as woefully incompetent, while praising him as a paragon of virtue who is the sole arbiter on the matter of club continuity following liquidation, a subject on which he is apparently infallible and his judgement and expertise cannot be questioned. I'm sure you can see the hypocrisy/double standards.

Edited June 16, 2022 by Squonk

[deej]

37 minutes ago, craigkillie said:

If the SPFL is supposed to find a title sponsor which is not in the same industry as any sponsor associated with any of the 42 member clubs then they're never going to have a single sponsor of any sort.

 

Don't give him any fucking ideas

[craigkillie]

55 minutes ago, G51 said:

“That a Club shall not, other than in respect of a Commercial Contract relating to Radio Transmission or Transmission, be obliged to comply with this Rule I7 if to do so would result in that Club being in breach of a contractual obligation entered into prior to the Commercial Contract concerned being approved to be entered into by the Company the Clubs and each of them shall license and otherwise provide to the Company the use of such of their other rights, facilities and properties as may be required by the Company to enable the Company to enter into and/or fulfil its obligations under and in terms of Commercial Contracts entered or to be entered into by the Company.”

The Ladbrokes/William Hill/32Red stuff is a complete red herring and a misunderstanding of what actually happened here. The issue is not that the sponsor was in the same industry as Parks. It's that Rangers had signed a contract giving Parks the right to advertise motor vehicles at the exclusion of their competitors.

This wasn't an issue with Ladbrokes, because 32Red do not have the same clauses in their contract.

To reiterate, Neil Doncaster knew all of this.

That's my point. Most sponsorship clauses do not have such restrictive exclusivity clauses in place, which is why clubs have been able to operate very happily with shirt sponsors and other sponsors who are in that industry. Therefore it is unlikely that any future SPFL sponsorship deals are actually going to impact on the value of individual sponsorship deals which Rangers and Celtic have.

The rule as it stands would basically allow a bad actor like Rangers to set up cheap 20-year exclusive sponsorship deals with companies in every single sector in order to essentially prevent the SPFL from being able to set up any sponsorship deals whatsoever once their existing ones expire. That is clearly not a good rule, and therefore has to be scrapped.

[G51]

3 minutes ago, craigkillie said:

That's my point. Most sponsorship clauses do not have such restrictive exclusivity clauses in place, which is why clubs have been able to operate very happily with shirt sponsors and other sponsors who are in that industry. Therefore it is unlikely that any future SPFL sponsorship deals are actually going to impact on the value of individual sponsorship deals which Rangers and Celtic have.

The rule as it stands would basically allow a bad actor like Rangers to set up cheap 20-year exclusive sponsorship deals with companies in every single sector in order to essentially prevent the SPFL from being able to set up any sponsorship deals whatsoever once their existing ones expire. That is clearly not a good rule, and therefore has to be scrapped.

Except Rangers won't do that, because there's no benefit to Rangers in doing so.

[craigkillie]

12 minutes ago, G51 said:

Except Rangers won't do that, because there's no benefit to Rangers in doing so.

The benefit to Rangers is the same as this one, to publicly undermine the SPFL.

[G51]

Just now, craigkillie said:

The benefit to Rangers is the same as this one, to publicly undermine the SPFL.

At the expense of pretty much all of our commercial income.

[coprolite]

20 minutes ago, G51 said:

Except Rangers won't do that, because there's no benefit to Rangers in doing so.

Rangers don't have a veto. You'll need +1 to agree. 

[craigkillie]

18 minutes ago, G51 said:

At the expense of pretty much all of our commercial income.

You wouldn't have to do it for areas where you actually have existing partners already, but you could imagine having, say, a supermarket provider, a soft drink provider, a food delivery provider and so on, where Rangers don't currently have a partner.

[coprolite]

2 hours ago, G51 said:

This has already been to court several times, the SPFL lost each time it did. First, by trying to claim that Parks weren't a related party, second, by trying to send the matter to the SFA for arbitration rather than settle it through the courts.

If the SPFL had any chance of winning this case, they wouldn't have been forced into a humiliating climb-down and relying on the good grace of cinch not to deduct more money from the already paltry deal that they're giving us.

The wildest thing about this is that Rule 17 is very straightforward and only a complete fucking idiot could fail to understand it.

For supporters on here not to understand how badly the SPFL fucked this is one thing. For Doncaster and McLennan to not understand their own rule book is quite another.

The most embarrassing thing about this for the SPFL is probably that they got outsmarted by Stewart Robertson and James Bisgrove, who are hardly shining examples of competent executives themselves. The league leadership is filled with incompetent losers, and it's crazy that they retain support among certain influential media figures (both traditional and supporter-led media).

 

 

The SPFL have dropped a bollock by including rule 17.

Rule 17 in itself looks fairly straightforward but the scenario engineered deliberately and maliciously by Rangers brought rule 17 into conflict with other rules about clubs' obligations. That conflict meant that how rule 17 applied in practice was not obvious. Only a fucking idiot would fail to recognise that. 

 

[G51]

14 minutes ago, coprolite said:

Rangers don't have a veto. You'll need +1 to agree. 

Wonder where we'll find that?

7 minutes ago, craigkillie said:

You wouldn't have to do it for areas where you actually have existing partners already, but you could imagine having, say, a supermarket provider, a soft drink provider, a food delivery provider and so on, where Rangers don't currently have a partner.

We already have a soft drinks partner (Coca-Cola) and a food delivery partner (UberEats). In fact, there are already multiple partners competing in the same sector, such as C&C Group and Douglas Laing.