Report from B&W Army on SMFC fans meeting:
Around 350-400 St.Mirren fans gathered at St.Mirren Park this evening to hear from chairman Stewart Gilmour on the situation facing the club, and Scottish Football as a whole, with regard the thorny issue of NewCo.
Stewart talked for around 15-20 minutes before inviting questions from those who were there.
Here is a (hopefully accurate) summary of what was said for the benefit of those that couldn’t make it.
The board completely understand the mood amongst the supporters that maintaining sporting integrity is of paramount importance in any decision that is taken by the football club.
The board are Saints fans too but they want to ensure that any decision taken by the club is the one that is most favourable to St.Mirren Football Club and thus not necessarily the one that most punishes Rangers Football Club.
This theme came across throughout the night, the board are very keen to look only at what is best for St.Mirren and the game as a whole rather than just seeking to maximise the punishment issued to the guilty party.
The board are very frustrated that at a time when St.Mirren FC is in its best health on and off the park in 20 years that it should be left facing a no win situation due entirely to events completely out with its control i.e.; the poor management of Rangers through previous owners.
Stewart outlined three potential outcomes, each of which has variables surrounding it relating to St.Mirren FC.
Scenario 1; Rangers return to SPL with some heavy sanctions
This is what will be voted on tomorrow at the SPL meeting, but it is possible that the vote itself may not even take place tomorrow with SG not really knowing what to expect. Rangers returning to the SPL would have a zero impact on commercial sponsors so would not impact St.Mirren financially, but it is not a palatable option given that sporting integrity would be completely undermined.
Sanctions would potentially include a points penalty, a re-adoption of the transfer embargo (expectation in football circles is that Rangers will drop their appeal on that charge and accept the original embargo) and a dropping of the 11-1 major vote structure which in turn will lead to a change to the distribution model of prize money.
Although this option would be the “best” financially for St.Mirren in terms of central sponsorship money there is a real threat of many season ticket holders walking away from the club (the club is currently 300 season tickets down on this time last year as it is) and with the sporting integrity completely undermined it is still the boards view that they must vote NO to this proposal.
Scenario 2; Rangers return to SFL 1
This option is out with St.Mirrens power to influence, other than by contributing to a NO vote to option 1.
This would be up to the SFL clubs to vote on and given the current “package” that has been offered to them (£1m would equate to approx £35k per team in division 1 sliding down to around £25k in the SFL 3) in return for effectively giving up the automatic promotion place next season (assuming Rangers would win SFL 1) and adding in play-offs the board do not think this is likely to get the necessary support from the SFL clubs.
St.Mirren did not know anything about the document that was sent to SFL clubs last week, they did not contribute anything to it at SPL level and know of no other club in the SPL who did. The document was signed by David Longmuir of the SFL. Needless to say it was not well received in any quarter.
Rangers coming in to division 1 would potentially (but not certainly) minimise the impact of commercial sponsors reducing investment in Scottish Football.
It was estimated that this could potentially cost St.Mirren around £200k in lost revenue but that would be potentially offset by the improved distribution of prize money in the SPL brought about by the dissolving of the 11-1 voting structure which would be replaced by a 9-3. St.Mirren could deal with a loss of this size, it would affect the playing squad (no new players) so would be painful, but it could be dealt with without serious damage to the fabric of the club.
SG talked about how the SFL clubs could really negotiate hard on Ranges coming in to SFL 1 and that the St.Mirren board hoped this could include a re-organisation of the top flight to grow the number of clubs.
The model he discussed involved 3 up and 1 down next season, bringing the SPL to 14 clubs who would play a 6/8 split which would potentially give Sky their 4 old firm games for season 2013-2014 in the last year of their current contract (assuming Rangers won promotion next season and finished top six the next which clearly can’t be guaranteed).
The following year would again see 3 clubs promoted and 1 relegated to make a top flight league of 16. The ins and outs of how that 16 would be constructed would still need to be worked on but in essence it would involve play offs at the top and bottom of the league and giving up a Europa slot as incentive to the clubs in the middle of the league.
Below the second tier would be a pyramid of potentially regionalised leagues feeding in but SG acknowledged that this would be up to those clubs operating in those leagues to decide what was best for them as a football club and it was out with the scope of tonight’s meeting to discuss that in any more detail.
SG said that the model needed refined, but pointed to the Belgian league who have a similar setup.
This was an example of how the SFL clubs could bring about positive change for the game from a negative situation.
It was noted that this option still reduces the value of sporting integrity and so was still unpalatable but less so in the boards opinion than a straight re-introduction to the SPL 1 would be.
Scenario 3; Rangers return to SFL 3
If the SFL clubs voted against allowing Rangers into SFL 1, and the SPL clubs voted against allowing re-introduction to the SPL then the only other option open to the NewCo in Scotland is to apply for what would be a vacancy in SFL 3.
This is the option most favoured by the fans, which the board acknowledge, and in a perfect world this is what would happen.
The main sticking point is the situation with regard the SPL central sponsors. There are 14 or so of these who contribute between them around £17m of money into the Scottish game.
The SPL has met with all of these organisations and discussed the possibility of Rangers moving to SFL 3.
Almost every partner has a clause in their contract that allows them to terminate or re-negotiate based on a scenario of either or both of the old firm clubs leaving the Scottish game. These clauses were put there in good faith as both clubs had previously indicated a wish to play in England or in a European league.
Late last weeks the SPL clubs were issued with a report outlining worst and best case scenarios for loss of commercial revenue should Rangers end up in SFL 3.
The SPL was not permitting clubs to discuss individual sponsors and their exact positions but some had said they would remain whatever happened and some said they would terminate, some said they would re-negotiate.
The estimated loss to St.Mirren based on the figures in this report would be between £600k and £1.1 in lost revenue based on last year’s earnings (St.Mirren finished 9th in the SPL).
The club always sets it’s annual SPL budget based on a worst case scenario of finishing 11th (relegation clauses are built in to every player’s contract across the whole SPL so the reduction in revenue following relegation would be offset by reduced wages) and in that scenario the club would still lose £400k to £800k depending on how negotiations went with the sponsors who had indicated a willingness to negotiate.
The board of St.Mirren reckon cost savings of around £275k could be made this season with no new players coming in and heavy redundancies and cut backs across every area of the club. Essentially every area where staff were not under contract would be cut to the bone.
This would still leave a large gap and one that the club could not bridge without outside help either from sponsors, player sales, fans, benefactors, the board or anyone else who would be willing to help. It would be a “financial disaster” for the club and one that it could take years to recover from.
SG warned that the club could even face Administration in these circumstances and that 5 other SPL clubs would almost certainly be in the same boat.
SG acknowledged that none of the above scenarios were positive, and that there would be unhappy supporters no matter what happened.
The board explained that it had prepared in advance for this season, due to SPL safety having been all but secured earlier than usual players were re-signed on new contracts and a couple of players signed on PCA’s. This meant that the club had a full first team squad that are all under contract for the coming season and so it was not simply a case of “cutting cloth to suit our means”.
If the financial meltdown was 12 months away then the club would be able to let quality players leave under freedom of contract and replace them with cheaper players. The quality of course would suffer but the club would survive. The issue right here and right now is that the club have budgeted for the revenues staying the same so this is why we would be in big trouble if we had such a sudden big drop.
Similarly it is not possible to go to the current players and ask them to sacrifice half their salary etc as has happened elsewhere. The players at St.Mirren are not paid huge wages and all have commitments to meet the same as everyone else.
The situation is already hurting the club as the drop in season tickets has caused operational problems. Prize money has still to be received from last season and so cash flow is a problem with players all still needing to be paid over the summer.
It was basically stated that the option of Rangers moving into SFL 1, together with major reconstruction conditions, was probably the best of a bad bunch of scenarios for St.Mirren Football Club.
A show of hands at the end saw half a dozen say they were in favour of Rangers returning straight into the SPL, whilst maybe 60-70% of those there (just guessing) said they were now in favour of the SFL 1 scenario (whilst acknowledging that was not within our power to give) with the remainder still adamant that SFL 3 was the only way.
It was an interesting night, and there was certainly a lot less heat that was expected. SG spoke well, the fans contributed well, and the discussions continued long after the final whistle as groups of fans debated what they had heard.
