Interview: Ex-SPFL chief Ralph Topping has faith in clubs to reach consensus for good of Scottish football

‘Ultimately it boils down to Rangers not wanting to see Celtic winning the title, and Hearts and Partick don’t want to get relegated’

Ralph Topping understands why some clubs are aggrieved with the SPFL's proposal but believes the people in Scottish football 'will do the right thing'. Picture: Billy Murray/SNS

Ralph Topping helped Murdoch MacLennan through a two-month induction period as chairman of the Scottish Professional Football League then smiled and informed his successor he was on his own.

“He is a canny man,” Topping says now. “I told him if you are coming in because you think it is sexy, it isn’t. If you are coming in because you will meet some nice people and the game itself is thoroughly enjoyable to be in, it’s all that and more.”

“But no matter what comes up there will be challenges,” Topping warned MacLennan, who took over nearly three years ago. “But I think he thought the game was over the worst of it.”

Everyone did, including Topping. His nine-year reign encompassed the SPL’s merger with the Scottish Football League and also the trauma of seeking to deal with Rangers’ financial meltdown. Stripping titles? Now one of the dilemmas involves awarding them.

There’s no one in Scottish football to blame for the present crisis. Not the genesis of it at least. But there’s been plenty of familiar backbiting in the wake of the game’s response to the outbreak of a pandemic. The shutdown order came too late, the advanced rescue payments released to clubs, certainly those in the lower tiers, too modest.

And now there’s the attempt by the SPFL board – on which Topping once sat – to resolve the vexed question of a suspended season. They have sought to accommodate the wishes of as many of the 42 clubs as possible while also reducing the threat of any of them going out of business. If enough vote to save themselves as well as others – and Topping believes they will – then the 2019/20 season 
will be curtailed, at Championship level and below initially, as soon as this evening. 
Phones will be red hot today as owners, directors and assorted club officials continue to furiously lobby one another prior to tonight’s 5pm deadline.

“My main sympathy is towards (SPFL chief executive) Neil Doncaster, Murdoch and the guys at the centre of it,” says Topping. “Wrongly they are often viewed as being the SPFL. They are not, it is the clubs. They are a bit like diplomats. They are trying to bring everyone together to agree a position. Like the UN, they are dealing with a lot of people who are not going to be happy. The obvious ones are Hearts at the moment as well as Partick Thistle and Rangers, all for their own different reasons.

“These clubs might dress their reasons up as being about the integrity of the league and all that stuff. But ultimately it boils down to Rangers not wanting to see Celtic winning the title and Hearts and Partick don’t want to get relegated, and I can well and truly understand that.

“Strip away all the noise, it always come down to two things – money and how you position your club relative to your supporters. No Rangers fan wants to see Rangers saying, ‘oh yes this is a very fair position’, or any Hearts supporter worth their salt wants to see Ann Budge say, ‘yes, we accept relegation’.”

Topping has first hand experience of the jostling and grandstanding that goes on among clubs. “There will be lots of phone calls taking place – lots of behind the scenes stuff,” he says. “Having been through various things with the clubs, ultimately – and I pay tribute to them for this – they have the capacity and inclination to do the right thing. It just might take them a while getting there.

“Consensus will be found,” he adds. “There will be a number of aggrieved prominent clubs. But I think people will look at the priorities and what is the right thing to do at the moment. The right thing to do at the moment is making sure clubs survive and for that they need money to survive. The people in Scottish football are sensible. They will do the right thing.”

Most will associate the period with unremitting rancour but Topping sensed that a new era of co-operation emerged following the last crisis to hit Scottish football. While a vote quashed Rangers’ hopes of being admitted to what was then the First Division following bankruptcy, they were allowed to be shoehorned into the Third Division.

“There was a change in atmosphere after the big kerfuffle about the decisions that were made around how the league should look around the Rangers period,” says Topping. “There was a lot more coming together – the welcoming back of Rangers into the Premiership, I don’t think anyone can argue they were not welcomed back. They also appeared on various representative bodies in the Scottish league.”

Those worries are from another time for Topping. Even the current concerns regarding Scottish football – he is anxious, but purely as an avid supporter of the game – pale in comparison to the life-and-death ones existing outside everyone’s front door. He has particular reason to be concerned. One of his three daughters works for the NHS.

“Our thoughts as a family are always going to be with her,” he says. “You tend to focus on family at times like this.”

He is desperate for the Scottish football family to emerge intact but as a former CEO of a William Hill, he’s aware what the downturn in trade – and paying punters – could potentially mean.

“That is stark for Scottish football,” he says. “I love the game, I love the individuality of the clubs and the history. But there will be a lot of worried people about as to whether some clubs can survive or not. I have no wish to see any club go under anywhere. They are such a vital part of the community in normal times. But we do not live in normal times. That must be a huge concern for directors. I do not envy them at all.

“They need money – and we are not talking about mega wealthy people who are directors at Scottish football clubs. There is no one tossing money over a fence towards them like the Premier League are doing in England towards the lower leagues.

“The National League in England, for example, is almost guaranteed a future because of the money lobbed towards them. However, clubs like the Dundees and Particks of the world, who have significant support and significant presence in Scottish life, have no lifeline.”

Fans, who have so often been on hand to bail clubs out in the past, cannot be relied on when the new financial climate may well have bitten them as well as their favourite team. “Will people still have the money to go to football, whether it’s on or not?” asks Topping. “Sky subscriptions, will they fall? They are falling already. Will people sudden rush back to renew their subscription – it is expensive. What is normal going to look like? It’s going to be redefined that’s for sure.”

The new landscape might even include a fresh format for Scottish football. If the SPFL’s resolution is approved, there remains the prospect of league reconstruction ahead of next season. Topping is extra glad to be absent from the firing line since he considers this to be thorniest topic of all. Next season might never get going at this rate.

“I always think when reconstruction comes up it is the biggest bun fight of the lot,” he says. “If you’re serious and people have thought it through and there is consensus, then great. But that has not even started yet.”