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Neil Doncaster humiliated by Rangers cinch defeat and SPFL chief can't hold on much longer - Barry Ferguson

This is not the first time the CEO has made a mess of handling tough situations.

In the end, Rangers cinched it. There’s only one winner as far as I can see when it comes to this long-running sponsor rammy between the SPFL and the top brass at Ibrox … and it’s not league chiefs Neil Doncaster and Murdoch MacLennan. From the very start of this whole mess you could see Rangers had a point.


It’s in the rules that the league cannot force one of its members to comply with a sponsorship package if it would threaten that club’s existing agreements with its own backers. Quite why they decided to press on when Rangers had made their opposition to this deal clear on the basis they already had an existing tie-up with the chairman Douglas Park’s car business I’ll never know. They’ve now got the result they wanted all along, which is they will continue to get the prize money share they are due without ever having to iron on a cinch badge to their jerseys or display a picture of Rylan round Ibrox. To me, it looks like a humiliating defeat for the league and Doncaster, even if they’re trying to spin it the other way.


READ MORE: Transfer news LIVE as Celtic and Rangers plus Hearts, Aberdeen and Hibs eye dealsREAD MORE: SPFL are cowards paying Rangers for cinch deal and league has embarrassed itself – Hotline

Doncaster has got a patchy record when it comes to his tenure.


This isn’t the first time he’s made a mess of handling these situations. In fairness to him, he’s the man left in the firing line no matter what he does. Whatever decision he takes, there’s always going to be someone who doesn’t like the end result and is happy to have a pop at him. But in this instance, Rangers definitely have a point which Wednesday’s announcement only underlines. And you can bet the board at Ibrox are not going to let up on this.

They’ve been pushing for regime change on Hampden’s sixth floor for years and after this victory, you’d imagine they’ll be out to pick another fight as soon as possible and heap more pressure on the beleaguered chief exec. The one thing I can say about Doncaster is he’s got thick skin. I’m not sure I’d fancy hanging about taking the amount of stick he does year after year. But then again, I suppose it helps when you’re earning well over £300,000 a year. The vibe I do get from the former Norwich City bigwig is that he’s not going to be forced out by one club. Can he survive this one? We’ll just have to see. But I fear allowing Rangers to effectively opt out of a sponsorship package will open a can or worms. Ok, cinch seem happy to go along with it but what about the likes of Glen’s Vodka, who also put cash into the league.

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What happens if a club announces it’s pulling out of that agreement because they sell Smirnoff in the player’s lounge? Ok, I’m having a laugh with that one but I’m serious when I say I’m concerned about the ramifications of this announcement. It’s just not a great look when one of the biggest clubs in the country can just refuse to take part in a vital sponsorship agreement and I can’t imagine it will help attract new money into the game. The whispers coming out of the SPFL the other night was that this new tweak to the cinch agreement has been backed “overwhelmingly” by the other Premiership clubs. But I just wonder what the other chairmen are going to think when Rangers are again allowed to rock out for each game with their own backers taking pride of place on the shirt sleeves, while they are forced to plug the league sponsors for what is frankly a paltry amount.

READ MORE: Celtic and Rangers given Champions League cash backing as Euro chief demands urgent revenue changeREAD MORE: Rangers WILL profit from new cinch SPFL deal as Ibrox club claim victory

Let’s get it right, £8million quid over five years to have your name plastered across four division isn’t exactly silly money. Incredibly, cinch are rumoured to be paying £10million alone to Tottenham just to have their logo on the arms of the Spurs players. If that doesn’t demonstrate just how much we undervalue our product up here I don’t know what does. And it’s not just the league branding that is short changing our clubs. The current Sky-SPFL TV deal brings in £25million per season - yet the satellite giants have shook hands with the Premier League on a contract that requires them to fork out an eye-watering £7.5million PER MATCH! No one is going to say we should be holding out for those kind of sums but Rangers are right in what they’ve been saying for the last couple of years now – Scottish football is not selling itself properly and a large responsibility for that lies with the SPFL. I really think we’ve got a great product now that we should be doing far better at maximising the profits from it. We need to go out and attract top quality people who can specialise in searching out the most valuable sponsorship and commercial deals, the kind of packages other competitions around the world seem to attract on a regular basis. Look at Norway for example. Their new TV deal is worth £61million a year. Read that again, SIXTY-ONE-MILLION, in Norway, per year! Don’t get me wrong, they have some decent clubs over there but there’s no way that league is bigger than ours. We’ve had Rangers just reach a major European final, dumping out a string of top clubs along the way. There’s a rejuvenated Celtic doing brilliantly well under Ange Postecoglou having just won a league race that remained tight all the way to the final few games. Added to that you’ve got Hearts on the rise again after escaping the Championship and Aberdeen, Hibs and Dundee United all looking to make progress under new bosses. There’s plenty to be excited about in Scottish football but time and time again we fail to bring in the kind of revenues from our major commercial deals that we should be demanding. Doncaster will insist he only does as instructed by the clubs but whether he stays or not, things have to change.

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Rangers FCScottish Professional Football LeagueNeil DoncasterDouglas ParkCinch SPFL Partnership
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