Any way to have the SFA/SPFL listen to the views of fans.

[Lencarl]

With the recent fiasco regarding match times and venues what would be the best way for the Scottish Football authorities to listen to the views of Scottish football fans.

 

The powers to be are running on the assumption fans would do nothing to hurt their own club so a boycott would not be supported. In my opinion a boycott IS the only solution to the problem. Clubs put statements out now and again supporting their fans but soon forgotten about until the next time a problem comes up.

 

Something has to be done.

[Jussi]

The Jumped up Chugger Doncaster was never fit to be in the position he is in.

 

But that's our collective club's mismanagement  for not voting in someone -  of at least some small measure of Vision & Wisdom

 

tbf we deserve this setup, at least our chairmen do.

 

[Ten Caat]

Doncaster should have been booted back south of the border by every chairman in Scotland after the oldco/newco stitch up. Only Turnbull Hutton of raith had the guts to say anything publicly though, and Wiggy should hold his head in shame forever after his "we need to move on" capitulation.

 

Regan was forced to resign from the GFA a couple of years back and Dungcaster should have followed him out the SPFL but instead he effectively copped a bit of a promotion by getting added to the SFA board.

 

The best thing for Scottish football now would be Celtic joining the English league set up and sevco going bust (although I'm sure i read somewhere that rules have been changed and even if they did go bust they could form a newnewco and remain in the league set up with only a minimal points deduction). Otherwise we are doomed forever to a 2 horse race as it was from the mid 80s onwards

[Lencarl]

DONS CHAIRMAN CALLS FOR SUMMIT

 

Aberdeen Chairman Stewart Milne has urged SPFL Chief Executive Neil Doncaster to seek a summit with the SFA in order to establish a greater understanding for all the game’s stakeholders, including clubs, players, authorities and supporters, as to the process and decision-making procedures employed by the governing body, in the wake of several controversial decisions this season.

 

 

More....https://www.afc.co.uk/2018/10/08/dons-chairman-calls-for-summit/

 

About time but will anything happen ?

[Elgindon]

 

Is there a time limit for one man to be in the same position? Must be about time for a natural change,though I seem to remember Walker and Farry in charge for what seemed decades.

  Could we have some influence on how our club votes in these guys.

 

[manc_don]

Bit rich for Milne to call for this.  He made this situation by telling us all to move on.

[TheDeeDon]

Aye Stewarty you reap what you sow loon. You were very well placed to change how things are run in our game, but still wanted to keep the 'natural order'.

 

JUst when I think I couldn't hate Milne anymore he comes out with this shite.

[tlg1903]

So, the consensus since the Mckenna appeal has been that the club need to respond to this and not just take it.  Club responds from it's highest possible voice but now actually it's a bit rich coming from him? 

 

Is this honestly whats happening? 

[manc_don]

So, the consensus since the Mckenna appeal has been that the club need to respond to this and not just take it.  Club responds from it's highest possible voice but now actually it's a bit rich coming from him? 

 

Is this honestly whats happening?

 

It's the right course of action, tlg, but I feel that this situation is of his own making.  Do you not agree that it's a bit rich coming from him?

[Ten Caat]

We all know Wiggy really isn't much of a football man. His brain purely focusses on business and when he came out with the needing a strong sevco shyte and need to move on I really don't think he understood just how much the average Dons fan despises oldco/newco.

 

Every Dons fans site I've seen has threads concerning the blatant arse cheek bias that the GPFL and GFA have been displaying. It was always thus but this season they've went into overdrive and seem to have abandoned all efforts at doing their deeds covertly and now are just openly and brazenly treating the cheeks with kid gloves whilst hammering everyone else. Us more than anyone else it would appear. Now the board we have underneath Wiggy is probably the most savvy ever in knowing how the average fan feels. They will know of the talk of fans taking action....boycotts featuring heavily.

 

The last thing they want is us staying away in numbers. Even a crowd of 10k at a game where 14k is the norm would result in a £100k hit. So the board have tried to engage and are trying to do something about the present state of affairs. I am pleased that they are doing so. But Milne is definitely reaping what he sowed back in 2012.

[tom_widdows]

It's the right course of action, tlg, but I feel that this situation is of his own making.  Do you not agree that it's a bit rich coming from him?

 

Is it possible to go with the 'people make mistakes (see our various referendums) and learn from them' option and get behind him on this one?

Or is it like the current tory government - you made the decision and that means you have to stick with it because if you decide something was maybe not the best idea, changing your mind and putting a stop to it, having another go, will undermine democracy blah blah blah.

Get sentenced to 18years of hell every time you vote for the people who wear blue......(fuck sake that means Ill be 48 by the time they get booted out! Who knows how old ill be when cockwomble leaves!)

[Ten Caat]

 

Get sentenced to 18years of hell every time you vote for the people who wear blue......(fuck sake that means Ill be 48 by the time they get booted out! Who knows how old ill be when cockwomble leaves!)

 

Time passes ever faster the older older you get. It is 30 years to the day since Durrant tripped over Simmie's foot. Seems like only yesterday.....

 

But yes you are correct. The club, and Milne, are to be applauded for trying to do something and we must all stand firmly behind them.

[manc_don]

I suppose from my perspective, it's more frustration than anything else.  This situation could and should have been avoided, we had a chance to change it all.  As I said, it's the right course of action and hopefully it'll lead to something positive.

[RicoS321]

Is it possible to go with the 'people make mistakes (see our various referendums) and learn from them' option and get behind him on this one?

Or is it like the current tory government - you made the decision and that means you have to stick with it because if you decide something was maybe not the best idea, changing your mind and putting a stop to it, having another go, will undermine democracy blah blah blah.

Get sentenced to 18years of hell every time you vote for the people who wear blue......(fuck sake that means Ill be 48 by the time they get booted out! Who knows how old ill be when cockwomble leaves!)

 

It's a good example you use (Brexit). The evidence was available in advance that the particular type of Brexit (the complete fucking unknown type) was going to be a shambolic shite show. "People make mistakes" doesn't wash when there's a deliberate ignorance of the evidence. The same can be applied to not changing the voting system, the attempted shoe-horning of the hun into the first division and so on. The notion that Milne made a mistake on not changing the 11-1, for example, is ridiculous. He had the evidence in front of him and would make the same decision again tomorrow. Hence his "Scottish football needs a strong Rangers" several years later despite the overwhelming evidence showing otherwise. He can still be right on many things, he just has to acknowledge his own part in making those issues more likely to occur.

 

 

[tlg1903]

It's the right course of action, tlg, but I feel that this situation is of his own making.  Do you not agree that it's a bit rich coming from him?

 

My feeling on this is that we need to focus on the present and the future.  The club needs to make a unified stance and hopefully get other clubs support too.  I've been posting on this board for long enough for most to know that I'm no Milne sycophant but I'm not going to chastise him for previous failures when he's currently trying to do the right thing.  I thought his statement was actually really good.  Calm, reasonable, factual and as a result hard to ignore.  Also not a concomitant or diktat in sight.  Don't get me wrong I do understand where you are coming from I just don't think there is anything to be gained by dredging up the mistakes of the past. 

[rocket_scientist]

The McKenna two match ban is not the straw that broke the camel's back, it's the beacon that shone light upon the festering sores of the Scottish institutional psyche. Doncaster isn't even Scottish. The clue was in his name. But he's been brainwashed by the pre-existing sickness.

 

Of course competition is good for the game. A Celtic running its way to twenty in a row would be a predictable bore. The authorities and pundits who espouse that "Scottish football needs a strong Rangers" are trying to say that the league needs to be competitive but implicitly they're saying that the rest of us are incapable of mounting a serious challenge. And they're probably right.

 

This doesn't mean that the authorities can bend the rules and ban a man who never committed a foul. Since when does getting the ball first and momentum carrying through constitute an infraction? The ref and linesmen didn't see it so the authorities taking action is them facilitating the OF showdown that they anticipate will raise interest levels. That it's Aberdeen, who came second 4 in a row is exactly who they wish to punish, to get all the inconsequential provincial teams oot the road.

 

They're sick men in these places and Doncaster is no leader of men. He is a follower, a politician, a career quango-ite, a fud, a spekky guffy cunt with no talent.

[RicoS321]

Of course competition is good for the game. A Celtic running its way to twenty in a row would be a predictable bore. The authorities and pundits who espouse that "Scottish football needs a strong Rangers" are trying to say that the league needs to be competitive but implicitly they're saying that the rest of us are incapable of mounting a serious challenge. And they're probably right.

 

I don't believe that for a second. If we won the last four league titles and the hun were bust they'd still be saying that the league needs a strong Rangers. It has nothing to do with competition and everything to do with re-instating the bigotfest, helicopter Sundays and a game returned to post 2012 boredom. That's what the media want, the SFA, the SPFL and probably a large portion of the country. They've built our entire game around it and that's what they use to market it internally and externally (to Scotland).

 

The rest are incapable of mounting a serious challenge. The game is set up to ensure this. It's systemic and AFC fought to keep it that way.

[rocket_scientist]

I don't believe that for a second.

 

I'm not sure what I said that you don't believe? I would like to discuss it but I don't know what is in dispute?

 

If you are disputing that the majority in Scottish football are incapable of mounting a serious challenge, a position that I'm sure almost the whole of Scottish football has come to accept - including tragically, many of our own fans - then why would you argue that "the game is set up to ensure this"?

[RicoS321]

The authorities and pundits who espouse that "Scottish football needs a strong Rangers" are trying to say that the league needs to be competitive

 

That's the bit I'm saying I don't believe. They're not interested in competition, just competition between Celtic and Rangers. A certain type of competition.

 

Nobody is "accepting" that the majority in Scottish football are incapable of mounting a serious challenge, they are explicitly stating a fact. The game, by design, is setup to ensure that the team that wins the league disproportionally increases revenue to an extent not seen in our game ever before and to a proportion (of turnover of the next most profitable club lets say) not seen in other leagues.

[rocket_scientist]

Nobody fails to appreciate the sickness of the west coast bias in Scottish football.

 

But much more influential in the revenue argument is the fact they average four times as big a crowd as we do, and more than a tenfold factor against the likes of Hamilton, Smurren, St Johnstone, Kilmarnock etc.

[rocket_scientist]

Nobody is "accepting" that the majority in Scottish football are incapable of mounting a serious challenge, they are explicitly stating a fact.

 

And this is the bit I don't believe for a second.

 

It's not fact that we can't mount a serious challenge. That we haven't is totally down to our own shortcomings and failings. Where you seek to blame the "league set up" for our repeated failures, I look closer to home.

 

There's no point in fans trying to be heard if we can't agree on the facts. Milne is right to put the issue on the table, the crazy decision that cost McKenna a two match ban. Everyone needs clarification in order that insanity like this can't go unchecked and unchallenged. But framing it as it's all fixed etc. is totally counterproductive to getting any sort of result. Effective dialogue only happens with an open minded approach. Successful negotiations start with knowing your enemy.

[RicoS321]

And this is the bit I don't believe for a second.

 

It's not fact that we can't mount a serious challenge. That we haven't is totally down to our own shortcomings and failings. Where you seek to blame the "league set up" for our repeated failures, I look closer to home.

 

But the evidence doesn't back this up. I'm not talking about our inability to win in the season that Delia was a shite manager - which is debatable, certainly - I'm talking about the 32 other years of evidence that shows that that particular season was a one off. I'm very quick to highlight our own shortcomings, but I also don't expect us not to make mistakes. We'd have to get every decision 100% correct in order to win the league (even that Ronnie Roar season), whether it be on when to release funds or the signings made from those funds. The odds are overwhelmingly, and systemically, stacked against us. Whether we can do better or not is not what I'm arguing (we can, very clearly). I'm also not saying that there is a "fix" as in a conspiracy, I'm saying that there is a fault of setup that needs to be recognised and addressed because no amount of Milne ranting about the minor issues of SFA panels and cup semi final locations will do anything to address that. He's not going for the big issues.

 

But much more influential in the revenue argument is the fact they average four times as big a crowd as we do, and more than a tenfold factor against the likes of Hamilton, Smurren, St Johnstone, Kilmarnock etc.

 

Except it isn't. Not even remotely. If crowd were the only factor then Celtic wouldn't have 10 times our wage bill, they'd have 4. Far more influential is the fact that they made £30M of revenue last season from a competition which ensures that they are then in poll position to be in that competition again the next season. That's the systemic issue. It's beyond argument, it's simply a fact. If it were only a case that ticket revenue was the difference, then we wouldn't have been 33 years without another league winner. I can't believe anyone would argue otherwise. It also assumes that only AFC can bridge the gap. What has Milne's poor running of AFC done to prevent Hearts from winning the league in the last 33 years? Or Hibs? Or Utd (that was a joke). What he could have done was fought alongside other times to get the 10 fold wage gap down to 4, then we'd see a new winner every 5-10 years. The evidence is overwhelming. We are in the most unequal period of Scottish football since its inception and that has resulted in 33 years of unparalleled two-teamism.

[rocket_scientist]

Nobody's disputing that the financial disparity is unfair and stifles competition. But the source of this short sightedness is much more UEFA than SFA or SPFL, even as it affects our league. You're shooting at the wrong target for the biggest fish... even though the pilchards and the dogfish who are the authorities in Scotland are cunts too. As is Milne. Everyone's a cunt. Including me. And you x x x

[rocket_scientist]

And AFC's inability to mount a serious challenge in the last 20+ years isn't just coincidentally when Milne took over. It's 100% down to the managers he employed not being fucking good enough.

[Lencarl]

This is what you get when your club says a strong Rangers is good for Scottish football.

 

It is important to make it clear there had been an attempt to deny Rangers fans all of Hampden’s north stand but this was resisted fiercely and that entire area will now be a sea of red, white and blue.

 

 

https://rangers.co.uk/news/headlines/semi-final-ticket-update/