As my good friend Iain Meredith pointed out on twitter, "only the SPFL could cock up allocation for a game where everyone who wants to go is pretty much guaranteed a ticket".
This is the seating arrangements for Celtic Park, as published by Aberdeen's website. The red seats, of course, will go to the Dons. The blue seats are for ICT. Unsurprisingly, Aberdeen's allocation is much larger than that of Inverness. Why that means that Caley Thistle fans are being shunted into a corner of the ground - a corner which is famous amongst Scottish away supports for being uncomfortable and offering a 'restricted view' that is so restricted that putting a paper bag over one's head does not make it any worse - is a mystery.
Inverness have cried foul, with chairman Kenny Cameron furiously stating that negotiations had not even concluded by the time this seating plan was revealed. To their credit, most Aberdeen fans see it as ludicrous as well. A few hours later, Neil Doncaster, Chief Executive of the SPFL, insisted that "negotiations are ongoing". Stable Door. Horse. Bolted.
Following on from the fiasco of the semi final, one wonders if there is a conspiracy here. The SPFL seem to have it in for ICT, for some reason. Perhaps Doncaster was once hit on the head by a caber when attending a Highland Games? Maybe he wasted an entire summer fruitlessly searching Loch Ness for the monster? Or has he forever held a grudge after losing £20 betting on a home win at Celtic Park on 8th February 2000?
Regardless, it is only about 3 and a half weeks till the final, and there's still no sign of when tickets will be on sale. Nor is there any idea whether extra buses or trains will be put on from Inverness, since, as with the semi final, there is precious little available in terms of public transport from the Highlands prior to the Sunday kickoff.
(UPDATE AT 1800: Seating arrangements have been changed. ICT get the Lisbon Lions Stand. A tiny smidgeon of common sense has been shown)
Sadly, as all Scottish football fans are aware, this is by no means an isolated mishap. Far more likely is that Caley Thistle are not being intentionally screwed over at all. It is just that the SPFL are an incompetent, shambolic mess of an organization.
Recently I blogged about how Motherwell's accounts for last season showed a loss, despite playing European football and finishing second in the league. Well, their AGM was on Monday, which meant the subject was in the papers again. If you recall. the club released a statement when the accounts were released which overtly criticised the league body - "The directors also express disappointment that no main sponsor has been found to replace the Clydesdale Bank. The effect on this season's commercial distribution is clear". According to sources present at the AGM, this was again alluded to, along with a concern that the league isn't getting the full value for the deals it is signing.
Over the last few weeks, I have been contacted by an insider at one SPFL club, who was even more damning than I had been. It's not just that the organization is inept. "It's definitely not operating for the benefits of clubs or fans...individual commercial deals are being strangled by centralised deals while (the SPFL) take credit for 'doing new business'. They are effectively taking money out of clubs' pockets and using it to justify their existence."
A couple of intriguing examples were given. One was a dissatisfaction at the decision to occasionally broadcast games live on BBC Alba - "It actually costs clubs to have BBC Alba games. Money lost from lower attendance and lost hospitality is more than BBC Alba put into the SPFL."
However, with the BBC Alba deal and other actions by the SPFL board, "only recently did club chairmen find out that these contracts were no longer being passed through club commercial departments before sign off".
So it is alleged that the SPFL, rather than acting for the benefit for the clubs, is actually doing deals which are not only detrimental to the clubs' income, but which they can trumpet to the brain-dead Scottish media as 'new commercial opportunities' which, in reality, are actually just facades to justify the inflated salaries of Doncaster and his cronies.
Omnishambles indeed.
And it seems that clubs like Motherwell and Inverness are starting to run out of patience with an organization that appears less and less fit for purpose.
L.
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