ON THE SPOT: Michael Grant

THEIR silence has been worth a round of applause. Barely a peep has been heard from Rangers, Celtic or Aberdeen about the implosion of Setanta even if the three of them will have been biting their tongues. At times like this the temptation to say "I told you so" must be extremely difficult to resist.

The Old Firm and Aberdeen did tell them so, "them" being the nine other SPL clubs who voted to stay in bed with Setanta last June when Sky had made a counter offer for the rights to show live SPL football. Only those three were sufficiently worried by the risk of the Setanta offer to oppose it. Only those three had an inkling that the economic climate just wasn't right for relying on long-term cheques being promised by a small, vulnerable pay-per-view broadcaster.

Yes, Setanta were offering more money - £11 million more - but at least Sky were certain to last the course. There was no doubt that Sky could agree to a deal to 2014 and still be around to honour that commitment. Setanta are close to going down the plughole just 12 months after telling the SPL they would pay £125m. £125m? They couldn't even cough up the £3m they still owe for last season.

There aren't any winners here. Looking smarter and more perceptive than the others isn't worth a damn to Rangers, Celtic and Aberdeen. Those three are - and will be - as out-of-pocket as all the others from the disappearance of Setanta's money. Nor would it be right to portray the other nine clubs who voted in favour of Setanta - Hearts, Hibs, Dundee United, Kilmarnock, Motherwell, St Mirren, Hamilton, Falkirk and Inverness - as bumbling dimwits because of this embarrassing collapse.

The nine of them looked at Setanta and saw a company they'd had a relationship with since 2004, a company which had originally pledged £8.75m per year to the SPL and increased that to £13m per year in 2006. The nine clubs figured that Setanta had been nothing but a good thing for Scottish football from the start. They saw it as a company which deserved the benefit of the doubt. They took the view, not unreasonably, that the £11m difference between the Setanta and Sky offers last year was not something which should be lightly overlooked. Besides, how would it have looked to Setanta if it had two years left on a deal with the SPL and the league had already struck its next deal with Sky?

The Old Firm and Aberdeen saw it differently. They saw a small company paying vast sums for the rights to sports events without reaching the subscription levels they needed for their business model to work.

For someone such as Sir David Murray, the Rangers owner and chairman, there were doubts from the start. Celtic's chief executive, Peter Lawwell, had shared his initial scepticism about the length and substance of Setanta's offer at the time of that original deal in 2004. "My fear is that we end up in a Nationwide League situation," Murray told the Sunday Herald when the SPL's marriage to Setanta was confirmed five years ago. "I hope it works, because it has to. If it doesn't work that's Scottish football in a right mess. I hope I'm wrong but I have serious reservations." Murray was wrong about that first deal, but, unfortunately, he's been proved right in the end.

No doubt there will be headstones in the tabloids and "Scottish football: RIP" headlines. There will indeed be comparisons to the Nationwide League/ITV Digital scenario that Murray alluded to five years ago. That is an exaggeration. The Nationwide League struck a three-year, £315m deal with ITV Digital in 2000 only for poor subscription levels to bring the broadcaster down before £178m of that deal was paid. The problem was that many clubs had spent the money in advance, committing to transfer fees and players' contracts based on cash which never materialised. Cue debts, redundancies and clubs going into administration left, right and centre.

So far the SPL is out of pocket only in terms of the £3m most recently owed by Setanta, and even that money has been distributed to the clubs from a central, "rainy day" fund cleverly squirreled away by the league itself. As for the money due from Setanta between now and the end of the deal agreed to 2014, no SPL club has spent any of that. No-one has tied players down on hugely improved deals on the basis of a windfall to come from Setanta. That will prevent this being another ITV Digital.

If the early speculation of interest from ESPN and Sky turns out to be correct the damage will be tolerable. Renegotiations will be tense because the SPL is in a weak bargaining position. Salvaging between 60%-90% of the proposed Setanta money from ESPN or Sky, as has been speculated, would be a triumph. Some senior figures within the Scottish game hold little hope of that much being recovered from the Setanta wreckage.

What will this mean? First of all, the removal of around £500,000 each club is due from Setanta on August 1. Unless ESPN, Sky or the BBC come in with offers, or Setanta somehow stumbles on to honour some level of ongoing commitment, Scottish football is going to live an austere, hand-to-mouth existence. Several clubs going out of business? Very unlikely. The end of the SPL as we know it? Nonsense.

Clubs will simply have to cut their cloth like never before. That means smaller squads filled with poorer players paid much less than their predecessors were on, not to mention lay-offs across the board for everyone from office staff to youth coaches.

Scottish football won't die because of Setanta, it will simply be drained of a lot of talented people.