The last few years have seen growing calls for an earlier start to the season. This is because of the increasing number of winter postponements and the fact an earlier start would help our clubs in Europe. I have no problem with this - even though a July 23 start will mess around with some of my summer plans.
However, the last few weekends in July see some clubs, namely Rangers and Celtic, play friendlies against teams stupid enough to give them lots of money. As a result, they don't want an early start. But worry not, because the SPL have decided to let them do what they want/come up with a novel solution (delete as appropriate).
For one season only, teams will be allowed to cancel an early fixture so they can go off on some jaunt to foreign lands. So as Celtic are due to play in some kick-about at the end of July, they can cancel their game. Will their prospective SPL opponents have any say in this? Probably not.
It's clear this has only been brought in because it's the Old Firm that will benefit financially. If it was one of the other clubs who wanted to go abroad and the Old Firm wanted the early start, you can guarantee that's what would happen and the rest of us would have to abide by that. The Old Firm are clearly running the show.
Let's just hope karma bites them on the bum and they end up with fixture congestion. And any smarty pants thinking of pointing out it won't affect us as we won't be in the SPL... don't bother!
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