Scotland teams to vote on the reconstruction of their football league

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When the ballot involving top-flight clubs in Scotland comes up in the following week, St Mirren has threatened to vote against the reconstruction of the league. The proposal will be put in front of a 12 Scottish premier league clubs, and is designed to merge the Scottish football league, and introduce a 12-12-18 structure.

The Paisley Club has stated that after studying the Articles of association, structure and shareholders agreement, The St Mirren Board Members have declined to support the motion set up in the proposal, which will be tabled on Monday.

The joining of the Senior Football League, and the Scottish League, into a single organisation is supported by the Saints Chiefs. Despite their perceived support for this proposal, they have expressed disdain at some of the terms which the SPL leaders want to put into place before the start of the next season.

A case in point is the proposal to split up the two divisions at the top of the league into 3 groups, with eight teams. These concerns are not just shared by the Saints Chiefs, but also by fans and coaching staff, who were included in the deliberations.

Although they support the proposal to have a new league structure, a single governing body, and a new model of distribution is one that is well thought out. But the way that the proposal is presented will not have the desired effect of promoting Scottish football.

The proposal outlays plans to have teams play 22 games before splitting into 3 groups of 8 teams. However, the middle 8 will lose all the points that they had won in the first round, and this will serve to demoralise players, and affect the game. The system has been tried in other countries and rejected for this reason. The fans would also have to get rid of their season tickets, a fact that will not go down well with them.

Mark McGhee delighted at becoming Scotland’s number 2

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Mark McGhee is aware he has some rebuilding to do as far as his reputation is concerned, but he’s not particularly worried about it. He’s been named as assistant coach by Scotland’s Gordon Strachan, and both men seem delighted with the situation. Strachan says McGhee will be a great asset to the team; McGhee says he’s very excited by the challenge and what he sees as a real possibility of taking Scotland to the Euro Championships in 2016.

McGhee has had a rather checkered career since he retired from play and started managing. He has had some great seasons, but he’s also had more than a couple of not-great-at-all periods, the last one with the Bristol Rovers, who sacked him in December. However this doesn’t seem to bother him either. He said that he’s honoured to be chosen for this job and expects to do a great deal better than just keeping Scotland off the bottom; he believes they can do far better than that..

For his part, Strachan says that the team needs to start out with a positive frame of mind and the attitude that gaining international respect is a goal worth working for. He said Mark has the same philosophy and that his (Mark’s) enthusiasm will be a big asset. The two have been friends for a long time, and as former Scotland manager Craig Brown maintains, it’s best when colleagues are also friends. Brown commented, “They say football is an old pals act and it is.”

McGhee says he’s confident in the calibre of Scotland players; he said he had done some scouting for Scotland’s former manager Craig Levein (prior to Strachan taking the job just last week) so he knows there is “. . . a very exciting squad of players to work with . . .”. His vision of the future for team Scotland matches up nicely with Strachan’s; they hope to rise in the ranks – all the way to the top.

Walter Smith gives his support to the new owners of Rangers

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Walter Smith, former manager of Rangers, declared that he supports the new owners of the club and the job they are doing at Ibrox. He is confident that they are working in the right direction and the club will restore its previous glory and condition. Smith was recently assigned as a non-executive director at Rangers, just five months after he tried to buy out the Sevco Scotland consortium owned by Charles Green.

Green declined Smith’s bid for the £5.5million consortium and persuaded Smith to become a part of his group. It seems like Green did a job as Smith joined the Rangers Board a few days ago. Green announced his plans to sell £20million worth of shares to investors and the supporters of the club.

Smith released an official statement as the new non-executive director of Rangers: “ I’m glad to once again be an official part of this legendary club. I want to assure all our supporters that the people in charge of the team are doing their best to reconstruct it and restore its previous condition. I’m confident that the club will soon forget this difficult period of its history.”

He added: “ I’m not just a former manager of Rangers. I’ve loved this club since a young child and I am just one of the thousands of supporters which the club has. As a fan, I assure you that I’ll everything in my power to help Rangers rise.”

It is no secret that Green isn’t the only person responsible for Smith’s decision to join the board. Rangers’ manager, Ally McCoist, has contacted Smith several times, convincing him to join the board and become a part of the club. McCoist stated: “Smith’s experience is welcome to the club. He has proven to be one of the greatest Rangers’ supporters and I believe that his presence at the club will help everyone.”

 

Brian Kennedy insists that his offer for Rangers is still valid

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Brian Kennedy reinforced that his offer to purchase the new Rangers is still good after its present owners spent a day claiming that the rumour was true and then stating that it was not. Charles Green the chief executive of Sevco denied that the owner of Sale Sharks had placed a bit on the team, despite the fact that earlier in the day he had said that the bid was real. Kennedy stated that he has officially submitted proof that his bid was real on the table and now the offer will remain good until it can be considered.

He explained that while he respects the fact that controlling investors have the right to reject or accept any bids that come in for the shares, he wants to make it a matter of public record that he is willing, ready, and financially able to support the Rangers Football Club in the future if his bid is accepted.

He added that his lawyers submitted the details of his original bid to Zeus Capital who are handling the sale of the football club. His solo bid failed, but he is hoping now that he could take a controlling arm of the shares with his new bid for 51% of the shares of the club.

The bid was rumoured to be about £5.6m and therefore quite intoxicating no doubt for the owners of the Rangers. Kennedy also stated that he has had several meetings over the past month with a man that represents the Sevco shareholders to discuss why he is interested in buying the club and what he would do with the football club if his offer is accepted. He added that the details from each meeting have been disclosed to club members so that full disclosure protocols are followed.

Kim Little pledges to do her best for Team GB, despite the SFA trying to scupper her inclusion

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Kim Little believes that she will not be a hindrance to the international football future of soccer in Scotland, but instead she will end up helping out Team GB in their football tournament and help the image of football overall.

The 22 year old midfielder decided to take her spot in the Olympic team despite the fact that the SFA asked her not to do so. This is due to a political battle that has brewed up over her inclusion on the Great Britain team given the fact that she plays for Scotland. However, Little is not worried about all of the politics of her inclusion and is instead focused on the game ahead of her. The SFA is worried that some players may threaten their home nation’s current FIFA independent status.

Little is one of the two Scottish women that will play for the Team GB women’s squad. Also on the team from Scotland is Ifeoma Dieke. According to Little, she plans to use what she learns while on the international team to help benefit her home team and help Scotland reach an international tournament finals competition. Scotland has not yet made it to an international final match.

The Scotland squad is hoping that next year they will be able to take it up a notch and reach the Sweden Uefa Women’s Euro finals. If they do not make it next year they may have a better chance coming up as the Canada World Cup scheduled for 2015 will mark the start of an increase in finalists with 24 teams allowed to compete for the final match privilege. Little went on to comment that it is Scotland’s target to get this far and the Olympics will only help Little and Ifoema bring it up to that level.