Lennongate - Where do we go from here?

Just when you thought Scottish football couldn't get dragged any lower, some complete and utter moron attacks Neil Lennon at Tynecastle. The reputation of our domestic game was already just about in the gutter; now it's languishing in a deep, dark Victorian sewer.

My blog on Neil Lennon last week, filled as it was with criticism of his touchline demeanour and garnished with somewhat unflattering pictures of the Celtic manager, might have given readers the impression that I am not particularly fond of him.

Let's just say I wouldn' buy him lunch. In fact, if he was on fire I would probably refrain from urinating on him.

But in the greater scheme of things, Lennon is a wind-up merchant - making provocative comments in interviews, gestures to opposing fans, over-celebrating Celtic's goals. He is the Abanazar of Scottish football - we all boo and hiss (and some shout things that you wouldn't normally hear at the pantomime) but, in the greater scheme of things, it's all part of the show and the entertainment.

So, no, I don't like Neil Lennon very much, and yes, I took great amusement in his antics at Inverness last week. But what went on at Tynecastle was just sickening. Let me put it this way; Neil Lennon is a football manager. That's all he is. He is not a terrorist, nor a mass murderer, nor a corrupt, cruel despot. He is just a football manager. So how on earth can anyone possibly justify, in their own minds, sending death threats, or parcel bombs, or trying to attack him during the game?

Of course, with enough alcohol on board, some people will do anything, and I suspect this was the fuel powering the lunatic Hearts fan who jumped the barriers and went for the Celtic dugout. Hopefully, when it comes to sentencing him, the judge's words will include "throw", "away" and "key".

But it's just another addition to the long list of shameful incidents that have tarnished Scottish football this season. The end of the campaign, the cup final on 22 May, can't come quickly enough. But where do we go from here?

Scottish football faces a summer of reckoning as it is. There has already been a talent drain in recent years from the SPL; over the next few months it will be not so much a drain as a whirlpool. We already know that some of the best players at non-Old Firm clubs - Conway, Gomis and Buaben at Dundee Utd, Riordan at Hibs, Eremenko at Kilmarnock, and possibly Inverness' Rooney and Aberdeen's Maguire - are likely to leave, probably to go south of the border. And it's no surprise; I'm reliably informed that former Caley Thistle midfielder Don Cowie increased his basic wage six times over when he signed for Watford two years ago, so Championship clubs have huge financial clout compared to the SPL. League One might be ahead as well - note how close Derek McInnes came to leaving St Johnstone for Brentford this week.

And as for the Old Firm, Rangers' new owner has been bullish about the funds Ally McCoist will have available, but the club still have a huge HMRC investigation hanging over them. Celtic, meanwhile, will need to fight off suitors of Izaguirre, Hooper and Kayal - will they be able to resist the lure of the English Premier League? Bluntly, you can expect so much wheeling and dealing this summer that you'd think Del Boy Trotter was in charge of some of these clubs.

So where will we be come the end of July, and the start of the 2011-12 season? I've no idea.

But it can't go on like this. Scottish football is haemorrhaging talent, and it's haemorrhaging interest as well. It's turning into World Wrestling Entertainment - a lot of trash talk, a lot of posturing, and most of the fighting is half-hearted and pretend. And like WWE, it's only entertaining to children and to people with IQs in single figures who have no life and are tanked up on substances.

It's not fair, you know; Caley have won four of their last five games and steamed to a creditable 7th place finish, pretty damn good for a side who have just been promoted. Why can't I blog about them instead?

L.