Rangers-biased media called out by SPFL for false claims

Murdoch MacLennan’s explanation about loans in the recent SPFL Q&A was questioned online as Rangers friendly media were called into action to raise issues from 2017.

The SPFL have issued a swift and angry denial. And it appears that it was actually Celtic’s financial support that helped the SPFL support other clubs financially in advance payments due, not loans.

In the Q&A earlier this week Mr MacLennan explained that the SPFL hadn’t made loans since 2013 and that clubs applying would need to provide financial information and demonstrate an ability to repay.

Blue twitter went into a conspiracy frenzy when SPFL financial accounts for 2017 were quoted.

"“During the year, two advances on club payments were made to SPFL clubs totalling £300k”"

But that’s a loan, and the SPFL said they hadn’t done any,  spluttered the blue tweets supported by some journalist finger pointing:

The story is very simple and, as is often the case, it has Celtic quietly in the background doing the right thing and helping other clubs. There is no lie, there is no secret, pointing out what’s in publicly available financial accounts is hardly a scoop.

The governing body have explained that payments totaling £300k were made to Motherwell and Partick Thistle during the 2016/17 season.

Rangers had been promoted to the Premiership and 3 clubs complained that fixture scheduling meant they were disadvantaged by not playing Celtic/Rangers at home often enough.

Motherwell and Partick Thistle had a negative impact to their cash flow due to a fixture anomaly following Rangers promotion to the Premiership and less home fixtures against them and Celtic hitting income. The SPFL were asked to bring forward some normal fee payments and pay those earlier than due to ease cash flow. An advance or bringing forward of payments due, not a loan needing to be repaid.

To help with SPFL cash flow, another club deferred £300k of payments it was due at the time and agreed that could be paid to them at a later date. So there was no impact on SPFL funds, Motherwell and Partick Thistle got the much needed support when they needed it most and the other club helped make that happen.

It’s reported that it was Celtic who were the other club involved, deferring their £300k to help others. Not the sort of matter the club feels the need to issue statements about.