Doncaster sells Scottish football down the river, again

The abject management of Scottish football was laid bare when not only did Neil Doncaster boast of a paltry £2M a year deal with new sponsors William Hill as being ‘record breaking’, but it also emerged the new TV deal has been split into Premier Sports as well as Sky meaning fans will have to add that provider to their monthly costs.

There’s a lot to pick through here.

First of all, as grasped, the cinch deal, a disaster from the start, was only £1.6M per year – the numbers in here were already a complete shambles. Compare that, for example, with the TV deal with Sky for the Championship in England – £1B. Yes. One Billion over 5 years. That’s £200M a year. For one single division.

Compared with this deal for the entire pyramid of Scottish football albeit the sponsors’ deal and it’s just ridiculous underselling. Oh good, it’s up to £2M. We’re saved.

If that underselling wasn’t bad enough, wasn’t humiliating enough, and the boasting about it wasn’t even worse, well, the rubbing fans’ noses in having to add Premier Sports to their subscription services is downright insulting.

This nonsense is why so many fans go with illegal streaming and IPTV services.

We’re finding it harder and harder to condemn or speak ill of these practises when we see the rising cost of broadcast football as more and more subscriptions and numbers are being added to fans’ bills.

While we don’t want to endorse the breaking of the law and ‘stealing’ copyrighted content, the average fan is being completely priced out of legally watching of the product.

Of course, many fans do already have Premier Sports given they’ve had the cups for a few years now, previously under the guise of Viaplay.

But this now makes taking in league football even less accessible for those who don’t get to all the matches or can’t travel easily to away venues.

The SPFL sold its soul to the cheap devil a long time ago – and the sickening part is Doncaster’s horrific wage around £500,000 a year which just seems to be the SPFL paying him a king’s ransom to find more and more ways to undersell our national game while fleecing the fans as much as he can.

The fan is the one losing out here, along with the clubs, while Doncaster is now the highest-paid man in Scottish football behind Celtic’s CEO Michael Nicholson, who gets the typical Old Firm CEO salary of £650,000-£750,000 as Rangers’ ex-counterpart James Bisgrove did.

But outside that? Doncaster is the richest man in town.

For making Scottish football poorer.