Details
Date: 1992
Issue: Scottish Super League proposals
Reference: Celtic board’s cack-handed handling of league restructuring proposals, which dented the club management’s reputation for competency.
Summary
In terms of the controversies and incidents which have packed Celtic history the reconstruction of the Scottish league set-up has been a very minor but ongoing issue.
Debate about the league structure in Scotland seems never ending and has at times provoked much heated discussion. Never more so than in 1992 when the self-styled “Big Five” of Scottish football – Celtic, Hearts, Aberdeen, Dundee United and Rangers – came together to form the Scottish Super League Ltd. With a string of radical proposals the SSL and the “Big Five” threatened to breakaway from the Scottish Football League (SFL) and set up their own competition.
Perhaps inspired by the newly formed Premier League in England the breakaway group were looking to totally revamp the format of the top league competition and to run the league independently from the SFL – who had up to then been in charge of the Premier Division, First Division and Second Division. Money was undoubtedly the key driving force behind the changes but it seems that even those involved with the SSL were not entirely convinced about the proposals.
Consequently it was no surprise when the SSL proposals were eventually ditched and the clubs remained, for a few more years at least, under the umbrella of the SFL in the Premier Division. Change – and a break from the SFL – would eventually come in 1998 with the introduction of the Scottish Premier League. But the new league was far less radical than the original SSL plans and it wasn’t long before talks began once more about revamping the league set-up again.
Kevin Kelly (chairman of Celtic at the time) made a complete farce of the then situation in 1992 with the SSL. To the surprise of all, in one issue on the front page of the Celtic View there was a large headline of “I Hope The Super League Never Happens” . In case anyone was wondering who said those words, there was a big picture of Kevin Kelly beside it. Much backtracking by Kevin Kelly to his Premier Division club counterparts saw him back on board for the new set-up, proclaiming that really he was fully on board.
Next thing, Celtic voted against it and said that they were actually against the proposals all along. Regardless of the club’s official stance from the board, publicly it was a shambles. Granted the press saw an inch but took a mile (again), Kevin Kelly didn’t half give them the opportunity to do so.
Taken from the Celtic View and fanzine Not The View from the summer of 1992, the articles below outline the Scottish Super League’s plans and, despite being part of the SSL breakaway group, the club’s and fans’ concerns about the move.
