Promotion and relegation must be sorted on the pitch – it’s good to have Celtic and Rangers on same page, says Provan

HAVING been as vocal as a Buddhist monk recently, it was good to see Peter Lawwell admit he wants this season’s fixture list completed.

Mind you, as the champion of sporting integrity who opposed altering the 2008 season to help Rangers’ European campaign, he could hardly say anything else.

I’m guessing privately Lawwell would have happily accepted the title now allowing him to get on with flogging season books for the ten-in-a-row extravaganza.

But if he found himself boxed in over the issue, he was right in saying this season can’t be declared null and void. That would leave broadcasters and season-ticket holders demanding money back.

Under no circumstances should seven months of league results be wiped out.

On the face of it at least, we now have the Old Firm clubs on the same page after Rangers managing director Stewart Robertson made Gers’ case clear.

Asked about the possibility of the Premiership being decided on current standings, Robertson, with crass insensitivity, said: “We will work to ensure no one runs roughshod over people’s lives.”

People’s lives? Has he noticed what’s happening in the real world?

Either way, both Robertson and Lawwell are right to insist the season is completed.

Those demanding an immediate end to the Premiership and distribution of prize money do it out of financial desperation.

By my reckoning, we could resume the current season as late as August if we’re on the home straight of coronavirus by then.

We could play the outstanding eight games in four weeks if necessary.

Yeah, I know broadcasters would have to be onside and players’ contracts sorted but, with enough goodwill, it could be done.

In my first Celtic season, we played our last eight league games in 27 days on our way to winning the title. That was without the benefit of sports science.

It would hardly inconvenience players who will have had a good rest and proper pre-season by then.

This would require Uefa to delay the beginning of next season’s European competitions.

But with a backlog of Champions League and Europa League fixtures still to be cleared, it’s likely next season’s European competitions will be delayed or curtailed anyway.

By abdicating responsibility last Tuesday, Uefa were a disgrace.

As predicted, the summit was an exercise in protecting their two biggest cash cows.

The Champions League will be completed at any cost, even if it means ties gatecrashing domestic leagues on weekends.

Bizarrely, Aleksander Ceferin’s lot still intend playing Euro 2020 in 12 different cities next year.

Would love to get wee Greta Thunberg’s take on that.

But money doesn’t talk in Nyon, it howls at the moon.

Closer to home, there’s enough headroom for SPFL chief Neil Doncaster to get this season’s Premiership and next season’s completed by May 2021.

Scrapping the winter break would be a good start.

It would free up two weeks at a time few clubs can afford warm weather training anyway.

Binning rip-off Scottish Cup replays would allow more league games in midweek.

Doncaster would have been hoping Uefa or Boris Johnson got him off the hook this week.

Had either declared this season’s league football over, he could have dished out prize money like Robin Hood.

Instead, his organisation is left with a decision that’s bound to cause mayhem. Problem is, this won’t come down to Doncaster making an impartial call.

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It’ll rest with an SPFL Board that fights like a sack of ferrets.

And if Rangers feel a premature end to the Premiership is unacceptable, what about Hearts?

How can you relegate a club who are just four points from a play-off place with 24 points available?

That threat has seen Tynecastle matriarch Ann Budge threaten legal action, backed by St Johnstone’s ex-chairman Geoff Brown.

Of possible litigation, Brown said: “Legally there’s a competition and it’s to play 38 games. That has to happen. Ann Budge was right.”

Brown went further suggesting the League Cup could be put on hold for a year if that’s what it takes to get this season’s Premiership finished with any credibility.

With Celtic 13 points and 25 goals better off than Rangers, Neil Lennon’s team is a stick-on for the title but down through the leagues the arithmetic is less certain.

Promotion and relegation must be settled on the pitch, not by Hampden’s version of the Pools Panel.

IS Celtic defender Kristoffer Ajer getting ahead of himself? Agent Tore Pedersen insists the 21-year-old won’t extend his contract and will leave Celtic this summer.

Of a possible move to England for the centre-back, former Hoops striker Harald Brattbakk said: “The money is a big issue.

"I heard Virgil van Dijk doubled his salary going to Southampton and then at least doubled it again moving to Liverpool.”

Harald pal, Ajer will never be in the same ballpark as van Dijk.

THE whispering campaign surrounding Alex McLeish’s health caused reputational damage.

The rumour mill had Eck fighting early onset dementia as a result of a career heading footballs.

A brain freeze while delivering a Scotland team talk fed the speculation.

Good then to see the man himself put the record straight, confirming he’s had the all-clear from neurologists.

Alex was sharp enough to lead us into the Nations League play-offs and that shouldn’t be forgotten.

IF Ann Budge had replaced Craig Levein with John Robertson, she wouldn’t be in relegation bother.

Budge wouldn’t be the first club owner to have poor taste in managers but she should never have sanctioned the bloated squad that saw the wage bill balloon.

Mind you, she could do without the tuppence worth of George Foulkes who wants to know where Hearts’ money has gone.

Has Foulkes forgotten he sold Vladimir Romanov to the Tynecastle faithful when he didn’t know Mad Vlad from a bar of soap.

Foulkes should go back to sleep in the House of Lords.

DUNDEE UNITED supporters’ chief Susan Batten believes Fifa must fund a rescue package for cash-strapped clubs.

Highlighting Fifa’s £2.5billion cash reserves, Batten said: “We must see funding from as far up as Fifa to help teams out.”

Good luck with that Susan. I doubt president Gianni Infantino could point to Scotland on a map.

GREAT gesture from Ryan Stevenson who won’t take his Stranraer wages during the coronavirus crisis and said: “It’s money that’s helpful for me. But having realised how long football could be stopped for, I couldn’t take it.

"I’d know I was putting the club into a serious situation and there might be no club to go back to.”

In the words of Andy Gray — take a bow young man.

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