Alan Pattullo: Signs of desperation as SPL pair woo Vladimir Romanov

Published on Friday 14 January 2011 16:12

Ten years to the month on from the sometimes bloody struggle which sealed Lithuania's independence from Russia, Neil Doncaster and Ralph Topping's visit won't be top of the agenda in Vladimir Romanov's adopted country, and rightly so.

But then neither should a trip to eastern Europe to attempt to coax Vladimir Romanov into backing their 10-10 league reconstruction plan be top of this pair's list-of-things-to-do in the days before Monday's meeting of Scottish Premier League clubs. Scottish football's very future is at stake.

From the evidence of the varying views of club officials, we are still many miles from reaching agreement about the best way to restructure the game in this country. Doncaster and Topping, in the meantime, were literally many miles away, having this week jetted off to Lithuania in an attempt to breathe life into their proposal.

It's a sign that things are not going quite to plan when Lithuania has been added to the schedule of pit-stop charm offensives. They sought to convince Romanov that a ten-team top tier is the way forward, perhaps employing the old bad-cop-good-cop technique. Although they bonded over a desire to see the Scottish Premier League have a greater control in Scottish football, Romanov made it clear to the SPL delegation that he won't be brow-beaten into accepting a proposal losing credibility at home.

The Doncaster-Topping road show is beginning to look an ever more desperate appeal, one which they think is worth both the financial and time cost of a trip to Lithuania, to meet a man hardly known for his love of the Scottish football establishment. Perhaps this is why they have targeted Romanov. They see the Hearts owner as a persistent agitator for change. If he can be convinced of the plan, then others will surely follow.

However, the sands have shifted to such an extent that the SPL delegation could be flogging a dead horse, whether Romanov is receptive to their plans or not. Reports from Lithuania yesterday suggested that he might not be completely against a ten-team league, so long as certain other conditions - such as a more even system of wealth redistribution among clubs - are met. He is just one of a growing number of influential figures wishing to explore other options before committing themselves to a 10-10. One alternative plan gathering momentum is the switch to a 14-team league. The debating should not stop on Monday, which is what Topping and Doncaster originally wanted to happen. In their ideal world they would fly back from Lithuania and walk into a meeting of compliant clubs at the start of next week, with the return to a ten-team top tier rubber-stamped in time for the six o'clock news headlines.

But this isn't going to happen now, and consensus possibly won't be achieved for some time. Everyone may agree change is necessary, but not change for change's sake - and certainly not change which sends Scottish football back in time.Doncaster and Topping don't like what they are hearing, as resistance begins to harden to what they had insisted was the only answer to Scottish football's obvious problems.

Doncaster, especially, has been strident in his view that the ten-team top tier, with ten other clubs forming an 'SPL 2', is the only solution, although the rhetoric has been slightly less bullish in recent days. Indeed, according to reports from Lithuania, the pair were prepared to listen as well as talk, and are at least inviting dialogue. They should, though, have courted such a wide variety of opinions at the end of last year. Instead, Doncaster's manner when seeking to sell the 10-10 system saw him face accusations of arrogance, as he trumpeted about the need to reduce, rather than increase, the number of clubs in the top division.

Perhaps the chief executive can sense the mood has become anti 10-10, perhaps he is regretting the cocksure language he employed in December, when news of the findings of a six-club strategy group first emerged. Then, he insisted, there was every likelihood all the clubs would support the change.

But on the way back from Lithuania yesterday he and Topping might have been advised to start scribbling some reverse-ferret procedures on the serviettes served with their complimentary drink. They could need a strategy for switching horses in mid-stream, if, as seems increasingly likely, the 14-team idea continues to gather support. Motherwell, St Mirren, Kilmarnock and Inverness are currently the clubs most strongly in favour of this format. A national newspaper has also started a pro-14-team campaign.

Doncaster and Topping could be about to regret nailing their colours so firmly to the mast. Another ship might be about to sail, one which they may find is impossible to board without their credibility being questioned.