No shift of power in SFA’s grand plan for Scottish football

The much-vaunted proposals to change the set-up of Scottish football look set to cause resentment among lower-league SFL clubs with power still concentrated in the hands of a few top clubs.

The proposed Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL) Ltd is to use a system of A and B shares to give the current Scottish Premier League clubs a much greater say in the running of the new league. The proposal is not necessarily tied to the issue of newco Rangers entering the Scottish Football League, but SFL club chairmen are seeing it as all part of the same “attempt to shove things through,” in the words of one director.

Scotland on Sunday has obtained a copy of the latest proposals by the Professional Game Board of the Scottish Football Association.

The plan is to create a league company with 16 £1 A ordinary shares and 30 £1 B ordinary shares. The new SPFL would have a Premier League and three lower divisions as at present. At present the SPL has 16 shares in its company but only 12 are issued, and in the new league these SPL clubs would have the A shares. The other 30 clubs would get the B shares, with clubs exchanging B for A shares when they are promoted to the Premier League.

The document states: “The A ordinary shares and B ordinary shares would have different class voting rights. As at present, proposals for Amendments to the Articles of Association and to section C of the rules (financial and commercial matters) as well as other strategic matters, which are defined as Qualified Resolutions, would require to be supported by not less than 11 clubs holding A ordinary shares.”

The company would have a chief executive appointed by the Board, which itself could comprise three directors appointed by the A shareholders and two appointed by the B shareholders. There would also be a non-executive chairman appointed by the A shareholders and two non-executive directors with A and B shareholders each nominating one.

There would be two “operational boards”, the first dealing with the top two divisions – named Division 1 and 2 in the document – and the second board for “divisions 3 and 4”.

Changes to the rules affecting only the top division would require eight A shareholders to vote in favour but crucially, the document states: “Approval of commercial contracts would require only the approval of not less than eight of the A ordinary shareholders.”

An SFL club director said: “This is all part of the attempt to shove things through in a rush while the Rangers crisis is ongoing, and a lot of people are not going to like it.

“Dividing the league into a two-tier governance structure is not what many of us thought we were getting and at the very least this needs to be thoroughly debated.

“The plan for 16 A shares shows that the SPL wanted a 16-team premier league all along, and there’s no mention of play-offs.

“Plus the Premier League will control the commercial stuff and we’re likely to see the same people in the same seats running things.”

Ross Caven, President of Queen’s Park FC and holder of the club’s appearance record as a player, has written to all SFL clubs urging support for league reconstruction with a blueprint of one league comprising four divisions. He adds, however, that there should be “one club, one share, one vote” and a revision of the financial distribution in the new set-up.

Controversially, Caven also says the proposed introduction of the

pyramid structure for bringing new clubs into the league should be scrapped, as there is “no sense” in expansion while the Scottish game is in trouble.

The SFA confirmed last night that the Professional Game Board had discussed the proposals at its latest meeting.