Roger Mitchell, the former chief executive of the Scottish Premier League, last night called on Neil Doncaster and Stewart Regan to resign in the wake of their failed attempt to gain sufficient support for Rangers newco starting out in either the SPL or the first division.
"The body of clubs over the last two or three weeks have made very difficult and courageous decisions. I salute them," Mitchell said. "They now need to make one more: they must recognise that Scottish football can only support a limited number of full-time clubs and together agree to find a formula, without self-interest.
"The Swiss FA did just that. It's a case study that can be learnt from. They also have an excellent youth programme.
"The people at the Scottish Football Association and Scottish Premier League who said this was not viable must do the honourable thing and resign. Their members do not believe them."
Mitchell held Doncaster's position as chief executive of the SPL from 1998 until 2002, after Rangers and Celtic vetoed plans for a league-owned broadcast organisation. In an exclusive article for The Herald on the eve of yesterday's vote, he described the SPL as a "14-year error of judgment" that would be killed off by the five-month debacle that concluded with the decision to place Rangers newco in the third division of the Scottish Football League. He believes the departures of Doncaster and Regan, his counterpart at the SFA, must now be part of wider changes in the Scottish game.
Mitchell was critical of the predictions made by both administrators that refusing to make a special case of Rangers would cripple Scottish football. He added: "This is the best solution for Rangers and maybe, just maybe, it is the catalyst to reboot Scottish football. Rangers will come back stronger and more credible."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article