Itâ??s hardly a bolt from the Blues

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THE Federation of Scottish Stable-Owners was last night in crisis talks over the best way to shut its doors in the wake of a prize horse bolting.

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The horse, Bluenose Boy, is believed to have smuggled millions of tons of straw to an offshore barn before galloping off, leaving stable-mates starving.

 

Now bosses hope they can make everything all right again by investing in a huge padlock.

 

In unrelated news, EssPeeEll chiefs meet today to decide whether to bring in tougher financial regulations.

 

See what I did there?

 

Satirically comparing the Rangers fiasco to a gee-gee doing a runner from a poorly-secured farmyard lean-to?

 

Heavy-handed humour perhaps. But when it comes to the people who run our top flight, you can never be too unsubtle.

 

To these trumpets, the bleeding obvious is like a giraffe's b*ws. It goes right over their heads.

 

I mean, come on â?? Frankie Boyle couldn't write comedy this black. An organisation meeting to debate the need for tighter fiscal controls, on the same day one of its leading members goes through the payroll with a flame-thrower to save itself from oblivion?

 

That's like Noah setting sail in the Ark and God calling St Peter in to see what he thinks about lifting the hosepipe ban.

 

If our Hampden heroes had half an ounce of self-awareness between them, it'd be the shortest meeting in history.

 

The chairman goes: "So, do we need more control tighter controls over the financial affairs of our clubs?"

 

And the rest chorus: "Would Craig Whyte need a bodyguard to go drinking in Govan?"

 

When it comes to getting the drift, though, the SPL is about as switched on as an Xbox in an Amish commune.

 

From the day and hour they hijacked the game, they've been miles out of touch with the views of fans, players, managers on everything from all-seater stadia and league reconstruction to the pointless split and the farce of making teams put two under-21s on the bench.

 

The only statute they put down in writing seems to be one dictating that all policy will be made on the hoof. With the added sub-clause that it should always be with total disregard to public opinion.

 

This exercise in stable-door-bolting on the day redundancies are announced at Rangers is the epitome of their cluelessness.

 

It would be laughable â?? if it didn't make you so damn angry that they actually believe whatever they say or do will make a shred of a positive difference.

 

This is a mob who stood and watched Gretna die, Livi and Motherwell go into administration, Dundee give massive contracts they didn't have cash to honour and Hearts stagger from one payment shambles to the next.

 

Now Rangers are in terminal meltdown and Dunfermline are the first, though maybe not the last, to head in the same direction thanks to the fallout.

 

Yet these jokers wait till NOW to get together and stroke their chins about whether they maybe should be doing more to get the game out of the red?

 

What an insult to every fan and employee of all 12 in the self-styled elite. What an admission of complete and utter failure that they're left playing this desperate game of catch-up.

 

There IS something they can do. They can admit defeat, call in the liquidators and let someone with a clue run the show.

 

And they HAVE been defeated. They HAVE failed. The whole reason the EssPeeEll came into being was because the greedy b******s thought the old set-up was too much like a sport and not enough like a business.

 

But look at it 14 years on, not so much a business as a graveyard. I mean, what kind of business does nothing while two middle-sized branches run up more than £15million in debt?

 

That's how far in the mire Dunfermline and Kilmarnock are between them. And what do they have to show for it?

 

A collection of grateful ex-players living in big posh houses driving flash cars, that's what.

 

Scottish football has not progressed one inch in 14 years. Crowds are down, entertainment levels are down, the quality of players falling, the lower leagues are surviving by the skin of their teeth, the national team is toiling.

 

Anyone who thinks it's mere coincidence all this has come to pass since the EssPeeEll came into being must be, well probably an EssPeeEll board member.

 

Not only could they not see the collapse of Rangers coming, they openly encouraged them â?? and every other club â?? to get in further and further over their heads by making everything they do about its price tag. No morals, no comradeship, no meritocracy. Just greed.

 

Makes you ask, for the thousandth time, what the hell their qualifications are for telling us how it should be.

 

Answer? They have none.

 

No qualifications, no mandate, no respect. And most crucially of all, no way out of the mess they've created.

 

So, see that big stable door, chaps? Don't let it hit your sorry asses on the way out.

 

 

 

Read more: http://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/scotsol/homepage/sport/columnists/billleckiesports/4172267/Its-hardly-a-bolt-from-the-Blues.html#ixzz1oCjcmg8Q